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THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL  IN 
RESEARCH  AND  DEBATE 


A  SERIES  OF  ESSAYS    ON  PROBLEMS   CON- 
CERNING  THE  ORIGIN   AND  VALUE  OF 
THE  ANONYMOUS  WRITINGS  ATTRIB- 
UTED  TO   THE   APOSTLE    JOHN 


BENJAMIN  WISNER  BACON,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

Buckingham  Professor  of  New  Testament  Criticism  and  Exegesis  in  Yale  University 

Author  of  "An  Introduction  to  New  Testament  Literature,"   "  The  Story 

of   St.   Paul,"  "  Beginnings  of  Gospel  Story,"  etc 


FEB 


^^. 


NEW  YORK 

MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 
1910 


Copyright,  1910,  by 

MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 

New  York 

AU  Rights  Reserved 

PUBLISHED,    FEBRUARY,    I9IO 


TO  THE  MEMORY 

OF 

MY  GRANDFATHER 

LEONARD  BACON 

A  STATESMAN 

OF 

THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 


:v.v. 


PREFACE 

The  present  volume  has  grown  out  of  certain  articles  con- 
tributed by  the  author  from  time  to  time  during  the  last  ten 
years  to  technical  and  semi-technical  journals  on  the  vexed 
problem  of  the  origin  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  It  owes  its 
semi-popular,  semi-technical  character  to  this  fact. 

The  controversial  element  imj)hed  in  its  title  is  also  a  re- 
flection of  the  conditions  of  the  time  equally  manifest  in  the 
articles  which  preceded  it.  A  group  of  four  appeared  in  the 
Hihhcrt  Journal  in  the  issues  of  April,  1903  (I,  3),  January, 
1904  (11,  2),  January,  1905  (III,  2)  and  October,  1907 
(\'I,  i).  In  these  the  elTort  of  the  writer  was  to  bring  before 
the  intelligent  lay  public  the  merits  of  the  great  critical  de- 
bate, the  cause  of  the  opponents  of  the  traditional  author- 
ship being  frankly  espoused.  At  intervals  before  and  dur- 
ing this  period  contributions  were  made  also  to  The  Expositor 
(1907),  the  Journal  of  Biblical  Literature  (1894,  1908),  and 
the  A  trican  Journal  of  Theology  (1900)  in  the  interest  of 
research  pure  and  simple  into  questions  involved  in  the  prob- 
lem. The  volume  begun  as  nothing  more  than  a  reproduc- 
tion of  these  two  groups  of  articles,  somewhat  revised  and 
supplemented,  naturally  reflects,  even  in  its  present  greatly 
developed  and  altered  form,  the  two  aspects  of  current  dis- 
cussion which  called  forth  the  material  of  its  substratum. 

Knowledge  of  the  fact  just  stated  may  be  of  service  to  the 
reader,  but  the  fact  itself  needs  no  apology.  Whether  for- 
tunately or  unfortunately— and  the  effects  are  not  all  un- 
favorable— biblical  criticism  is  forcerl  to  build  with  one 
hand  on  shield  and  spear,  the  other  on  the  trowel.    Before 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

its  results  are  tested  on  their  merits  it  is  required  to  justify 
its  own  existence.  The  assailant  of  the  traditional  author- 
ship of  the  Fourth  Gospel  has  no  real  success  unless  he  can 
obtain  a  hearing  from  men  profoundly  interested  in  the 
cause  of  revealed  religion,  above  all  in  the  rehgion  which 
has  Jesus  Christ  as  both  teacher  and  Lord.  The  first  step 
of  those  who  resist  his  conclusions  is  to  assure  the  public  to 
which  he  appeals  that  his  motives  are  inimical  to  its  dearest 
and  most  sacred  ideals.  How,  then,  can  criticism  obtain  a 
hearing  without  the  weapons  of  controversy? 

On  the  other  hand,  what  examples  not  only  of  consecrated 
scholarship,  but  of  dignified  and  noble  Christian  courtesy,  are 
evoked  in  such  names  as  Lightfoot,  Sanday,  James  Drum- 
mond !  Only  the  conviction  that  his  cause  is  just  can  lead  a 
comparative  novice  into  the  lists  against  such  as  these.  If 
one  venture,  it  can  only  be  in  the  full  realization  of  relatively 
imperfect  scholarship,  less  extensive  learning,  less  accurate 
knowledge  on  many  important  facts.  And  yet  in  such  a  field 
as  this,  where  new  facts  are  grains  of  gold  hidden  under  moun- 
tains of  thrice  sifted  waste,  the  more  vital  requisite  is  the 
perspective  of  great  and  well-known  things  in  their  true  pro- 
portion and  relation,  rather  than  extent  or  minuteness  in  the 
knowledge  of  particulars.  New  perspectives  may  be  given 
to  a  younger  generation,  and  when  seen  they  demand  to  be 
made  known.  Such  is  the  reason  for  this  book.  Errors  will 
doubtless  reveal  their  presence  in  it.  Its  tone  toward  older 
and  greater  authorities  of  opposing  view  may  be  criticized 
as  showing  too  little  of  that  respect  professed  by  the  author, 
and  professed  not  in  insincerity,  nor  as  conventionally  due, 
but  out  of  deep  and  well-founded  conviction.  We  hope  the 
criticism  will  not  seem  justified.  ]\Iany  things  might  have 
been  better  said,  some  perhaps  might  have  been  better  left 
unsaid.  And  yet  withal  the  faith  remains  that  our  book  will 
be  of  sendee.    ]\lay  the  reader  gain  from  it  new  insights  into 


PREFACE  ix 

the  beginnings  of  our  faith.  May  the  Church  of  Christ  be 
stimulated  by  it  to  a  larger  and  freer  apprehension  of  his 
Spirit. 

Benj.  W.  Bacon. 
New  Haven,  Oct.  26,  1909. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


Preface  

Introduction:  The  Issues  Involved 


PAGE 

iii 
I 


PART  I 


The  External  Evidence 


Chapter 


Chapter 

II, 

Chapter 

III, 

Chapter 

IV. 

Chapter 

V. 

The  Modern  Form  of  the  Ques- 
tion   

Echoes  and  Influences    .     .     . 

Papias,  Eusebius,  and  the  Ar- 
gument FROM  Silence    .     .     . 

The  Tradition  as  to  the  Elders 
AND  Its  Transformations 

John  in  Asia  and  the  Martyr 
Apostles 


17 
43 

73 

lOI 

127 


PART  II 


The  Direct  Internal  Evidence 


Chapter 
Chapter 


VI. 
VII. 


Chapter     VIII. 


The  John  of  Revelation     .     .     157 
Epistles  and  Appendix — Their 
Relation    to    One    Another 
AND  to  the  Gospel     .    .    .     .     184 
The    Appendix    a    Product    of 
Revision  at  Rome      ....     210 


XI 


xii        ^  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter        IX.    The    Battle    for   Recognition 

OF  Asian  Tradition  at  Rome    226 

Chapter  X.    Irenaeus    the    Mediator    and 

THE  Fourfold  Gospel    .     .     .     247 


PART  III 

The  Indirect  Internal  Evidence 

Chapter        XI.    The  Evangelist's  Task    .     .     .     273 
Chapter       XII.    The     Disciple     Whom     Jesus 
Loved,  and  His  Relation  to 

the  Author 301 

Chapter     XIII.     Johannine  Pragmatism      .     .     .    332 
Chapter      XIV.     Johannine   Treatment  of  Syn- 
optic Material 356 

Chapter       XV.     Johannine      Topography     and 

Chronology 385 

Chapter      XVI.     Johannine  Quartodecimanism  .    412 

PART  IV 

Latest  Phases  of  Debate  and  Research 

Chapter  XVII.  The  "Defense"  of  the  Gospel  443 
Chapter  XVIII.    The     Analytical     School     of 

Criticism 472 

Chapter     XIX.     Dislocations  of  Material  and 

Tatian's  Order 497 

Chapter       XX.     Conclusion 528 

Index 539 


THE   FOURTH    GOSPEL 

INTRODUCTION 

THE  ISSUES  INVOLVED 

The  greatest  English  scholar  of  his  generation,  acknowl- 
edged leader  of  the  self-styled  "defenders"  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  in  beginning  his  discussion  of  the  problem  made  the 
following  statement  of  his  conviction  regarding  the  issues  in- 
volved : 

"The  genuineness,  of  St.  John's  Gospel  is  the  center  of  the 
position  of  those  who  uphold  the  historical  truth  of  the  record 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  given  us  in  the  New  Testament.    Hence 
the  attacks  of  the  opponents  of  revealed  religion  are  concentrated 
upon  it.     So  long  however  as  it  holds  its  ground,  these  assaults 
must  inevitably  prove  ineffective.    The  assailants  are  of  two  kinds: 
(i)  those  who  deny  the  miraculous  element  in  Christianity — Ra- 
tionalists, (2)  those  who  deny  the  distinctive  character  of  Christian 
doctrine — Unitarians.    The  Gospel  confronts  both.    It  relates  the 
most  stupendous  miracle  in  the  history  of  our  Lord  (short  of  the 
Incarnation  and  the  Resurrection),  the  raising  of  Lazarus.    Again, 
it  enunciates  in  the  most  express  terms  the  Divinity,  the  Deity,  of 
our  Lord.     And  yet  at  the  same  time  it  professes  to  have  been 
written  by  the  one  man,  of  all  others,  who  had  the  greatest  oppor- 
tunities of  knowing  the  truth.    The  testimony  of  St.  Paul  might 
conceivably  be  set  aside,  as  of  one  who  was  not  an  eye-witness. 
But  here  we  have,  not  an  cKrpwfia,^  not  a  personal  disciple  merely, 
not  one  of  the  twelve  only,  but  the  one  of  the  twelve — the  Apostle 
who  leaned  on  his  Master's  bosom,  who  stood  by  his  Master's 
cross,  who  entered  his  Master's  empty  grave.     If  therefore  the 
1 1  Cor.  15:8. 
I 


2  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

claim  of  this  Gospel  to  be  the  work  of  John  the  son  of  Zebedee  be 
true,  if  in  other  words  the  Fourth  Gospel  be  genuine,  the  most 
formidable,  not  to  say  an  insuperable,  obstacle  stands  in  the  way 
of  both  classes  of  antagonists.  Hence  the  persistence  and  the 
ingenuity  of  the  attacks;  and  hence  also  the  necessity  of  a  thorough- 
ness in  the  defence."  ^ 

It  is  possible  that  Bishop  Lightfoot,  were  he  living  to-day, 
might  modify  somewhat  the  terms  by  which  he  characterizes 
his  opponents.  Those  who  antagonize — not  "the  claim  of 
this  Gospel  to  be  the  work  of  John  the  son  of  Zebedee";  for, 
Bishop  Lightfoot  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  the  Gospel 
does  not  "profess  to  have  been  written"  by  him — but  the 
theory  traceable  to  about  170  A.  D.  imputing  its  authorship 
to  "the  beloved  disciple,"  are  still  accustomed  to  being  de- 
scribed as  rationalists  and  Unitarians,  and  by  no  means 
anticipate  that  the  "defenders  of  the  Gospel"  will  altogether 
refrain  from  the  imputation  of  evil  motives  of  which  the 
example  has  been  so  conspicuously  set.  In  this  no  im- 
mediate change  is  to  be  expected.  But  inasmuch  as  on  the 
one  side  a  considerable  and  increasing  number  of  scholars  of 
Bishop  Lightfoot's  own  evangelical  type  of  belief  are  to-day 
joining  the  ranks  of  his  opponents  on  the  Johannine  ques- 
tion, while  on  the  other  one  of  the  most  eminent  and  con- 
spicuous defenders  of  the  "genuineness"  is  both  a  Unitarian 
and  a  denier  of  that  "  most  stupendous  miracle  ...  the 
raising  of  Lazarus,"  it  is  possible  his  phraseology  might  be 
altered. 

Whether  the  epithets,  and  the  imputations  of  motive  be 
fair  and  reasonable  or  not,  as  applied  to  scholars  of  to-day, 
all  such  will  thoroughly  agree  with  Bishop  Lightfoot  as  to  the 
vital  character  of  the  issues  involved.  We  see  many  an  emi- 
nent scholar  whose  views  on  this  moot  point  of  historical  and 

1  Lightfoot,  Biblical  Essays,  Macmillan,  1893,  p.  47. 


INTRODUCTION  3 

literary  criticism  are  diametrically  opposed  to  Bishop  Light- 
foot's,  who  is  an  ardent  supporter  both  of  "revealed  religion" 
and  of  "the  divinity  of  our  Lord."  But  such  scholars  have 
no  disposition  to  deny,  they  vehemently  afhrm,  that  their  in- 
terpretation of  those  much  debated  terms  "  revelation,"  "  di- 
vinity of  Christ,"  varies  widely  from  that  which  would  be 
forced  upon  the  Church  by  some  advocates  of  the  Johanninc 
authorship.  It  does  indeed  make  a  tremendous  difference 
whether  the  particular  doctrine  of  "the  Divinity,  the  Deity  of 
our  Lord"  which  this  admittedly  late  writer  presents  as  re- 
flecting Jesus'  teaching  as  to  Sonship  is,  or  is  not,  to  be  en- 
forced as  the  main  feature  of  his  message,  conveyed  on  the 
authority  of  "the  one  man,  of  all  others,  who  had  the  greatest 
opportunities  of  knowing  the  truth."  On  this  question  we  are 
driven  unavoidably  to  the  alternative:  Either  Synoptics,  or 
John.  Either  the  former  are  right  in  their  complete  silence 
regarding  prcexistence  and  incarnation,  and  their  subordina- 
tion of  the  doctrine  of  Jesus'  person,  in  presenting  his  work 
and  teaching  as  concerned  with  the  kingdom  of  God,  with 
repentance  and  a  fihal  disposition  and  life,  as  the  requirement 
made  by  the  common  Father  for  that  inheritance;  or  else 
John  is  right  in  making  Jesus'  work  and  message  supremely 
a  manifestation  of  his  own  glory  as  the  incarnate  Logos, 
effecting  an  atonement  for  the  world  which  has  otherwise  no 
access  to  God.  Both  views  cannot  be  true,  and  to  a  very 
large  extent  it  is  the  science  of  literary  and  historical  criticism 
which  must  decide  between  them.  We  agree,  then,  with 
Bishop  Lightfoot  that  the  Johanninc  authorship  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  is  the  question  of  questions  in  all  the  domain  of 
biblical  science.  The  criticism  which  has  effected  a  trans- 
formation in  our  concejjtion  of  Hebrew  religious  history  by 
making  the  so-called  Priestly  Document  the  latest  and  his- 
torically speaking  least  reliable  source  of  the  Pentateuch,  in- 
stead of  the  earliest  and  most  fundamental,  will  accompHsh 


4  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

a  still  more  revolutionary  change  in  our  conception  of  New 
Testament  beginnings,  if  its  deductions  are  accepted  re- 
garding the  Fourth  Gospel. 

Since  the  period  of  the  Greek  fathers  and  the  Ecumenical 
councils  all  approaches  toward  a  historical  view  of  the  origins 
of  Christianity  have  been  dominated  by  that  metaphysical 
conception  of  the  person  of  Christ  which  begins  with  -Paul 
and  culminates  in  the  Confession  of  Nicaea.  The  Hellenistic 
conception  of  incarnation  visibly  enters  the  domain  of  Jewish 
messianism  in  the  Epistles  of  Paul;  in  that  which  we  may 
designate  the  Johannine  Canon,  a  group  of  Epistles,  Gospel 
and  Apocalypse  appearing  at  Ephesus,  the  most  important 
centre  of  the  Pauline  mission  field,  at  the  very  close  of  the 
first  century,  this  conception  has  become  a  full  fledged 
Logos  doctrine.  In  this  group  of  writings  Jesus  is  formally 
and  distinctly  identified  with  the  Logos  principle  of  Herac- 
litus,  the  Ephcsian  philosopher  of  about  500  b.  c.  There 
cannot  be  in  the  whole  domain  of  biblical  science  a  question 
more  absolutely  vital  and  fundamental  than  this :  Is  the  con- 
ception of  the  life  of  Jesus  as  an  incarnation  of  the  divine 
Logos  a  development  of  Pauline  speculation  about  Christ; 
or  is  it  Jesus'  own  teaching  regarding  himself  ?  The  ques- 
tion depends  in  large  measure  upon  the  ulterior  one :  Is  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  which  presents  this  view — and  presents  it  in 
complete  contrast  to  the  earlier  three,  known  as  Synoptic — 
is  the  Fourth  Gospel  our  sole  surviving  record  from  the 
hand  of  one  of  the  twelve-^-one  of  the  most  intimate  of  these 
companions  of  Jesus  in  Galilee  ?  Or  is  this  Gospel  not  only 
late,  but  altogether  secondary  and  dependent;  serviceable 
for  the  light  thrown  upon  the  development  of  Pauline  into 
patristic  Christology,  but  of  little  or  no  service  to  supplement 
historically  the  Synoptic  picture  of  the  teaching  and  career 
of  Jesus? 

Paul,  like  his  great  contemporary  Philo,  the  interpreter  of 


INTRODUCTION  5 

Judaism  in  terms  of  Greek  philosophy,  rests  largely  upon 
the  Alexandrian  book  of  Hellenistic  stoicism,  the  Wisdom 
of  Solomon  (ca.  30  b.  c.)-  In  this  book  the  redemptive  as 
well  as  the  creative  principle  in  the  di\ine  nature  is  the  cle- 
ment of  "wisdom."  This  "cfTulgcnce  "  of  the  divine  glory, 
which  was  in  the  beginning  the  "artificer"  of  creation,  which 
"fills  all  things,"  interpenetrates  all  things,  and  "holds  all 
things  together,"  enters  also  "into  holy  souls  and  makes 
men  to  be  prophets  and  friends  of  God."  Philo,  the  Erasmus 
of  the  Jewish  church  in  the  period  of  its  great  crisis,  in- 
terpreted this  "wisdom"  doctrine  on  its  scholastic  and  in- 
tellectual side.  He  naturally  makes  a  shorter  course  in 
his  identification  of  it  with  the  creative  and  revelative  prin- 
ciple of  Heraclitus,  as  subsequently  developed  in  current 
stoic  cosmology.  For  Philo,  the  step  would  be  easy  from  the 
divine  "wisdom,"  his  "second  God,"  which  is  not  another, 
but  only  God  manifest  and  operative  in  the  world,  to  the 
Logos  of  the  Ionic  school  of  cosmological  speculation. 
Paul,  the  Luther  of  the  age  of  the  Hellcnization  of  Judaism, 
has  not  yet  taken  this  step.  With  him  there  are  other  elements 
in  the  divine  "wisdom"  which  are  not  covered  by  the  more 
coldly  intellectual  Greek  term.  The  "wisdom  of  God" 
is  to  Paul  preeminently  that  redeeming  agency  which  goes 
out  "to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  was  lost."  This  is  char- 
acteristic of  the  Palestinian  "wisdom"  doctrine,  as  against 
the  Hellenistic.  We  see  it  for  example  in  what  the  Eoistle  of 
James  says  of  the  gift  of  "wisdom"  (Jas.  1:5,  17,  ,8,  21; 
3:13-18;  4:5,  6). 

Paul  is  not  at  heart  a  Greek,  however  deeply  affected  by 
stoic  dualism.  Fundamentally  he  is  a  Pharisean  messian- 
ist.  Cosmological  speculation  with  him  is  secondary.  Eth- 
ics and  eschatology  are  primary.  He  is  interested  in  ques- 
tions of  conduct,  he  is  schooled  in  the  extravagant  dreams 
of  apocalypse.     Nay,  he  is  an  apocalyptist  himself,  rapt 


6  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

away  in  ecstasy  to  the  third  heaven.  When  Paul  became 
a  Christian,  Jesus  became  to  him  the  solution  of  his  ethical 
and  his  eschatological  ideal  in  one.  Ethically  Christ  became 
to  Paul  "the  end  of  the  law  unto  righteousness"  by  a  teach- 
ing and  life  which  put  ethics  upon  a  wholly  new  plane. 
Eschatologically  he  became  the  Lord  from  heaven,  Heir  of 
the  Creation,  predestined  Head  of  a  redeemed  universe  of 
conscious  beings,  by  the  fact  that  he  had  been  "manifested 
as  the  Son  of  God  with  power  by  the  resurrection  from  the 
dead."  Messianism,  and  especially  apocalyptic  messianism 
with  its  copious  importations  from  Persian  and  pre-Persian 
mythology,  had  almost  no  effect  on  Philo.  It  was  the 
breath  of  life  to  Paul.  No  wonder,  therefore,  that  Paul  is  in 
no  haste  to  identify  that  redemptive  agency  of  God  which 
he  found  incarnate  in  Jesus,  and  that  apocalyptic  Second 
Adam  whom  he  had  seen  in  the  person  of  the  risen  Christ, 
with  the  cosmological  principle  of  Heraclitus  "the  obscure." 

And  yet  the  cosmological  ideas  half  unveiled  in  Paul's  let- 
ters to  Corinth  and  Rome,  founded  as  they  unmistakably 
are  upon  the  Hebraized  stoicism  of  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon, 
have  as  their  unavoidable  issue  just  such  an  identification 
of  this  phase  of  the  divine  "wisdom"  as  Philo  makes.  As 
has  been  well  said,  "All  of  the  Logos  doctrine  but  the  name 
is  already  present  in  the  Pauline  Epistles." 

But  it  is  not  the  Logos  doctrine  of  Philo  to  which  Paul's 
thought  is  leading  up.  Even  in  the  Johannine  hterature, 
wherein  the  name  Logos  itself  is  naturalized,  thenceforth 
to  be  used  in  the  Greek  fathers  of  the  second  century  in- 
terchangeably wdth  the  Jewish  term  Wisdom,  it  only  appears 
upon  the  threshold  and  does  not  invade  the  sanctuary.  The 
prologue  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  makes  the  formal  identifica- 
tion, presenting  the  evangelist's  cosmology;  but  it  is  not  in- 
troduced into  the  utterances  of  Jesus  himself.  Indeed  it  is 
one  of  the  main  objects  of  this  waiter  to  fill  the  term  with 


INTRODUCTION  7 

that  ethical  and  sociological,  if  not  cschatological,  import 
which  it  could  never  have  obtained  by  the  short  cut  of  Philo's 
scholasticism. 

The  roots  of  the  Johanninc  Logos  doctrine  are  only  to  a 
slight  and  subordinate  degree  in  Philo.  They  run  back  by 
way  of  Hebrews  and  more  especially  by  way  of  the  great 
Pauline  Espistles  of  the  second  period,  Colossians  and  Ephe- 
sians,  through  purely  Christian  soil  to  the  common  ances- 
tor, the  Wisdom  of  Solomon.  We  have  said,  "All  of  the 
Logos  doctrine  but  the  name  is  already  present  in  the  Paul- 
ine Epistles."  We  might  say  with  almost  equal  truth,  The 
whole  Christology  of  "John" — a  vastly  greater  matter  than 
the  mere  cosmological  concept  of  the  Logos — is  a  straight- 
forward development  of  the  incarnation  doctrine  of  Paul. 

Hebrew  speculative  thought,  once  it  had  reached  the  stage 
of  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  was  sure  to  issue  in  some  sort 
of  Logos  doctrine.  Even  the  Synagogue  developed  its  hy- 
postases of  a  Memra  and  a  Metatron.  In  Alexandria  the 
step  could  be  taken  easily,  logically,  through  a  Philo.  In 
Palestine  and  the  Christian  world  it  had  to  undergo  a  period 
of  postponement  and  of  immeasurable  enrichment  by  all 
that  is  implied  in  the  story  of  Jesus  and  of  Paul. 

Philosophers  of  the  period  of  Justin  Martyr  and  Irenaeus 
confessed  that  there  was  no  practical  difference  between  their 
own  mode  of  thinking  and  that  of  Christian  theologians  save 
on  the  one  point  of  the  incantation  of  the  Logos.  The  doc- 
trine of  the  Fourth  Gospel  would  be  acceptable  to  them  if 
they  might  be  permitted  to  cancel  the  one  clause  "the  Logos 
became  flesh."  Gnostics  and  Docetics  would  go  further  still, 
asking  only  to  substitute  "dwelt  in"  for  "became."  But 
one  must  have  failed  to  grasp  even  the  elements  of  Johan- 
nine  thought  not  to  realize  that  this  verse  is  absolutely 
central  to  the  system.  Incarnation  is  its  keynote.  The 
Johannine  Christ  comes  not  by  water  only,  like  the  a;on 


8  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Christ  of  Cerinthus,  who  at  the  baptism  made  the  man  Jesus 
a  "  receptaculum "  for  his  presence  until  the  passion.  It  is 
one  that  comes  by  water  and  by  blood.  Its  Jesus  was  not  di- 
vine from  the  baptism  only,  nor  from  the  birth  only,  but  from 
all  eternity  and  to  all  eternity.  The  fourth  evangelist  is  de- 
termined to  hold  that  very  man  whose  voice  the  Church  had 
heard,  whose  form  it  had  seen,  and  their  hands  had  handled, 
in  eternal,  inseparable  union  with  that  very  Word  and  Wis- 
dom of  God,  "who  being  in  the  form  of  God  had  not 
counted  it  (like  the  first  Adam)  a  prize  to  be  grasped  by  rob- 
bery to  be  equal  with  God,  but  had  humbled  himself  and 
taken  on  him  the  form  of  a  servant,  and  become  obedient  unto 
death,  even  the  death  of  the  cross;  "  having  also  for  this  very 
self-humiliation  been  highly  exalted  by  God,  and  given  "the 
name,  which  is  above  every  name,  that  in  the  name  of  Jesus 
every  knee  should  bow,  and  that  every  tongue  of  men  and 
of  angels  should  confess  that  he  is  Lord,  to  the  glory  of  God 
the  Father." 

The  Logos  doctrine  of  Paul  is  also  a  creation  doctrine. 
"We  believe  in  one  God  the  Father  of  whom  are  all  things, 
and  in  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ  through  whom  are  all  things." 
It  is  also  a  wisdom  doctrine,  as  postulating  a  mind  sub- 
stance which  forms  the  common  term  between  the  human 
reason,  the  intelligible  cosmos,  and  the  Absolute. 

"  '  Things  which  eye  saw  not. 

And  ear  heard  not. 

And  which  entered  not  into  the  heart  of  man.' 
(Even  the  things  which  God  hath  prepared  for  them  that  love 
him);   he   hath  revealed  them   unto   us  by  the    Spirit;   for   the 
Spirit  searcheth  all  things,  yea  the  deep  things  of  God." 

As  a  man's  spirit  gives  him  consciousness  of  his  purposes 
and  intentions,  so  we  in  having  the  mind  of  Christ  are  made 
participant  in  the  consciousness  of  the  Creator.  Such  is 
Paul's  conception  of  the  X0709  ivSLdd€To<;.    But  beyond  and 


INTRODUCTION  9 

above  these  merely  philosophical  aspects,  Paul's  Logos  doc- 
trine is  an  avalar  of  the  redemptive  energy  of  the  divine  na- 
ture. The  legalistic  and  apocalyptic  thought  of  Pharisaism 
give  it  substance.  The  Ufe  of  Jesus  on  earth  as  proclaimer 
and  exponent  of  the  gospel  of  sonship  by  faith,  Paul's  vision 
of  him  as  the  risen  Lord  of  glory — these  give  it  definite  form. 
Such  is  Paul's  doctrine  of  the  Xo'709  7rpo(f>opiK6';.  Is  it  a 
matter  of  righteousness  and  the  law  and  the  knowledge  and 
fulfilment  of  the  divine  will?— "Say  not  in  thine  heart.  Who 
shall  ascend  into  heaven  (that  is,  to  bring  Christ  down); 
or,  WTio  shall  descend  into  the  abyss  (that  is,  to  bring  Christ 
up  again  from  the  dead).  The  word  is  nigh  thee,  in  thy 
mouth  and  in  thy  heart  (that  is,  the  word  of  faith  which  we 
preach)."  Is  it  a  matter  of  the  coming  kingdom,  the  new 
heaven  and  new  earth  of  religious  aspiration?  Then  the 
scripture  is  applicable. 

"  '  When  he  ascended  on  high 

He  led  captivity  captive 

And  gave  gifts  unto  men.' 
For  this  'He  ascended,'  what  is  it  but   that  he  also  descended 
into  the  lower  parts  of  the  earth.    He  that  descended  is  the  same 
also  that  ascended  far  above  all  the  heavens  that  he  might  fill  all 
things." 

How  is  it  possible  in  face  of  the  genius,  the  ardor,  the  en- 
thusiastic conviction  of  a  Paul,  that  anything  should  survive 
to  us  of  that  simpler  Christology  which  roots  itself  in  the 
Galilean  tradition  of  Jesus'  own  life  and  teaching?  Not  a 
fragment  remains  of  the  reputed  Aramaic  compilation  by 
the  Apostle  ^Matthew  of  the  Sayings  of  the  Lord.  If  we  can 
restore  them  it  is  only  in  Greek  translation,  as  elements  taken 
from  the  substance  of  later  Greek  gospels.  The  narrative 
of  Jesus'  life  which  tradition  tells  us  comes  ultimately  from 
the  lips  of  Peter,  and  which  at  all  events  has  practically 
taken  the  place  of  all  other  tradition  from  times  as  remote  as 


lo  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

the  origin  of  our  first  and  third  Gospels, — even  this  narrative 
of  Mark  also  comes  to  us  as  a  Greek  product,  from  the  Pauline 
church  of  Rome,  framed  in  the  interest  of  Pauhne  doctrine, 
saturated  with  Pauline  phrases  and  ideas.  And  yet  the 
older,  simpler  Christology  has  surv'ived.  Neither  the  teach- 
ings as  restored  from  the  non-Markan  material  common 
to  Matthew  and  Luke,  nor  the  Markan  narrative,  nor  our 
canonical  first  or  third  evangelist  has  introduced  anywhere 
one  trace  of  the  Pauline  doctrine  of  the  preexistence  of  Christ 
or  of  incarnation.  Both  the  fundamental  Synoptic  sources, 
ISIatthaean  sayings  and  Markan  narrative  as  well,  exhibit  a 
consistent  historical  situation  true  to  conditions  as  we  know 
them  at  the  time.  We  see  legalism  dominant  in  the  Synagogue, 
the  masses  religiously  destitute,  disinherited  from  the  now 
transcendentalized  messianic  hope.  Jesus  comes  fonvard 
taking  up  simply  and  loyally  the  prophetic  and  humanitarian 
reform  of  John  the  Baptist.  He  becomes  the  champion  of 
the  publicans  and  sinners,  offers  an  "easy  yoke"  of  simple 
God-likeness,  and  an  assurance  that  the  relation  of  fatherhood 
and  sonship  is  open  to  all.  It  is  the  Father's  good  pleasure  to 
give  the  kingdom  even  to  the  little  flock  now  gathered  around 
him.  Sayings,  incidents,  parables  are  all  consistent  with  this 
Galilean  environment,  this  ethico-religious  impulse.  Jesus 
speaks  to  "babes"  in  the  wisdom  that  is  revealed  to  "babes," 
like  a  plain  man  to  plain  men,  albeit  with  the  power  of  a 
prophet  and  of  more  than  a  prophet.  Even  his  miracles  are 
not  as  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  "manifestations  of  the  glory"  of 
the  incarnate  Logos.  "He  went  about  doing  good,  healing  all 
that  were  oppressed  of  the  Devil."  Like  the  "sons  of  the 
Pharisees"  he  exorcised.  Like  his  disciples,  and  even  some 
that  followed  not  with  them,  he  "did  mighty  works,"  mainly 
of  healing,  "because  God  was  with  him."  There  was  colli- 
sion with  the  scribes  and  synagogue  authorities — Jesus  was 
driven  out  of  Galilee.    He  went  to  Jerusalem  and  challenged 


INTRODUCTION  ii 

the  priestly  hierocracy  itself  in  the  stronghold  of  their  power, 
demanding  in  the  name  of  "the  people"  that  the  temple  be 
no  longer  a  den  of  robbers  but  a  house  of  prayer,  and  refer- 
ring those  who  called  for  his  authority  to  the  example  of  the 
Baptist.  Priestly  conspirators  seized  him,  delivered  him  to 
the  Roman  governor  as  aspiring  to  be  the  Christ,  and  secured 
his  crucifixion  on  this  ground.  His  followers,  scattered  at  first, 
soon  rallied  to  Jerusalem,  convinced  by  appearances  to  Peter 
and  others  that  God  had  raised  him  from  the  dead  and  exalted 
him  to  heaven,  whence  he  would  indeed  soon  appear  as  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  man,  the  Redeemer  of  Israel. 

Such  is  the  Synoptic  story  of  Jesus.  Its  keynote  is  not 
incarnation  but  apotheosis.  Jesus  is  the  Servant  whom  God 
according  to  promise  had  "raised  up  from  among  his  breth- 
ren" "to  bless  them  in  turning  away  every  one  of  them  from 
his  iniquities."  Him  "the  heavens  must  now  receive  until 
the  time  of  the  restoration  of  all  things."  Meantime  re- 
pentance and  forgiveness  in  his  name  must  be  preached  to 
Israel  and  "to  all  that  are  afar  off,  even  as  many  as  the  Lord 
our  God  shall  call."  All  the  factors,  all  the  essential  ele- 
ments of  this  story  fall  within  the  known  historical  environ- 
ment. The  ideas  in  debate  are  those  current  in  Judaism  as 
it  then  was.  John  the  Baptist,  the  Pharisees,  the  scribes,  the 
publicans  and  sinners,  the  mutual  relations  of  these  and 
their  conflicting  hopes  and  ideals,  are  all  intelligible.  The 
whole  drama  is  a  drama  of  real  Ufe.  It  demands  the  divine 
factor  behind  it  just  as  all  life  does,  just  as  the  life  of  our  own 
time  docs;  because  without  this  not  even  the  simplest  thing 
is  intelligible.  But  for  all  the  essential  factors  of  the  story 
divine  inten^ention  is  not  required  in  any  other  sense.  We 
say  "essential  factors"  for  it  can  scarcely  be  required  that 
we  regard  this  tradition  as  miraculously  exempted  from  the 
tendencies  to  exaggeration  and  legendary  accretion  to  which 
all  others  are  exposed. 


12  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

The  representation  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  inverts  all  this. 
Divine  intention  and  operation  are  not  interpreted  by  his- 
torical fact,  but  historical  fact  by  divine  intention  and  op- 
eration. What  an  incarnation  of  deity  must  say  and  do  in 
order  to  make  clear  the  redemptive  plan,  this  is  what  is  said 
and  done.  The  selection  of  seven  "signs"  is  avowedly  made 
for  the  purpose  of  producing  faith  in  this  sense.  The  Synop- 
tic sayings  give  way  to  dialogues  on  Christological  doctrine, 
the  parables  to  seven  allegorical  "I  am's."  There  is  neither 
order  nor  connection,  nor  do  events  entail  their  consequences. 
John  the  Baptist  already  proclaims  Jesus  as  "  the  Lamb  of 
God  that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world;  "  Jesus'  earliest 
disciples  regard  him  as  "the  Son  of  God,  the  King  of  Israel;" 
the  very  opening  of  his  ministry  introduces  the  culminating 
act  of  resistance  to  priestly  control  in  the  temple. 

The  contrast  in  point  of  view  between  the  Synoptic  and 
Johannine  conception  is  not  a  matter  of  dispute  to-day 
among  intelligent  people.  The  facts  above  stated  are  veri- 
fiable. The  general  contrast  is  admitted.  We  have  even 
from  the  most  unexpected  quarters  admissions  of  the  un- 
historical  character  of  this  representation,  its  allegorical, 
mystical  and  metaphysical  nature.  It  is  admitted  that  the 
dialogues,  which  maintain  throughout,  for  all  speakers,  the 
same  style,  and  that  style  the  marked  and  characteristic 
style  of  the  Epistles  of  John,  are  the  evangelist's  own  com- 
position. It  is  even  conceded  by  at  least  one  prominent  ad- 
vocate of  Johannine  authorship  that  the  incidents  themselves 
may  be — and  that  in  some  of  the  most  vital  cases — fictitious. 
Yet  if  these  concessions  seem  to  be  made  in  one  quarter 
they  are  immediately  repudiated,  or  withdrawn,  in  another. 
Such  an  attitude  is  untenable.  There  must  be  consistency 
one  way  or  the  other.  The  life  of  Jesus  was  either  divine 
only  in  so  far  as  it  realized  all  the  divinity  of  which  humanity 
is  capable;  or  else  it  was  not  human  save  in  so  far  as  deity 


INTRODUCTION  13 

can  take  upon  itself  "the  form  of  a  servant,"  while  still  re- 
taining the  attributes  and  consciousness  of  deity.  Which  of 
these  two  modes  of  conceiving  the  life  of  Jesus  contains  a 
real  gospel  for  a  world  of  lost  and  disinherited  sons  of  God, 
is  a  question  for  the  Church  to  determine.  Hitherto,  it  has 
placed  all  its  emphasis  upon  the  metaphysical.  Which  of 
them  represents  the  real  Jesus,  is  for  historical  criticism  to 
determine;  and  the  heart  of  the  problem  is  the  Gospel  at- 
tributed to  John,  with  its  reversal  of  the  Synoptic  conception. 
Both  conceptions  cannot  represent  the  apostolic  story.  Har- 
monization overreaches  itself  when  it  attempts  to  bridge  this 
chasm.  ^Manifestly  an  apostolic  eye-witness  and  intimate  of 
Jesus  who  should  so  abuse  his  unique  position  as  to  offer 
speculative  fiction  and  allegory  instead  of  the  rich  store  of 
personal  recollections  of  the  Master  he  was  competent  to 
give,  would  be  worse  than  no  witness  at  all.  His  high  claims 
to  present  "the  truth,"  regarded  as  the  reahty  of  tangible 
experience,  would  be  mockery. 

No;  the  issue  is  far  deeper  than  a  mere  matter  of  words 
and  names,  and  it  calls  aloud  for  decision.  If  the  Fourth 
Gospel  is  that  which  tradition  maintains,  then  the  whole 
history  of  our  religion,  the  whole  conception  of  its  Founder 
is  radically  involved.  We  cannot  reasonably  treat  Synoptic 
story  as  of  equal  value  with  this  subsequent,  completely 
different,  representation,  by  one  immeasurably  better  quali- 
fied to  set  forth  the  truth.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  within 
the  competence  of  historical  and  literary  criticism  to  deter- 
mine from  what  sources,  in  what  period,  with  what  authority, 
this  Johannine  representation  has  been  produced,  then  our 
lives  of  Christ  and  our  interpretations  of  Christianity  must 
be  written,  or  rewritten,  accordingly. 

Such  hves  of  Christ,  such  interpretations  of  Christianity, 
and  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  itself,  are  fortunately  not  wanting. 
But  as  long  as  the  issue  hangs  undecided,  Christian  teaching 


14  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

as  a  whole  will  follow  the  beaten  track  of  tradition.  It  will 
even  be  treated  as  heresy  and  disloyalty  to  Christ  to  question 
the  authorship  long  imputed  to  these  writings.  Such  con- 
siderations will  not  greatly  weigh  with  those  accustomed  to 
believe  that  the  scientifically  trustworthy  is  apt  to  prove  also 
the  practically  edifying  to  faith.  If  in  addition  the  Ephcsian 
Canon  is  found  to  be  the  exponent  of  Christian  life  and  faith 
in  just  that  obscure  period  which  marks  the  transition  from 
Paul  to  the  post-apostolic  age,  genuine  and  true  because 
reflecting  the  very  heart's  faith  of  a  great  church  in  a  great 
age,  there  will  be  compensations  for  the  loss  of  a  supposedly 
apostolic  record.  Its  author,  like  Paul,  will  have  known  no 
"Christ  after  the  flesh";  but  deeply  and  truly  the  eternal 
Christ  after  the  Spirit.  The  faith  will  not  be  vain  in  which 
he  has  written  to  the  end  that  by  believing  we  also  "might 
have  life  in  his  name." 


PART  I 
THE  EXTERNAL  EVIDENCE 


PART  I 

THE  EXTERNAL  EVIDENCE 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  MODERN   FORM   OF  THE   QUESTION 

A  singular  difference  of  opinion  seems  to  exist,  even  among 
the  strongest  upholders  of  the  Johannine  Authorship  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  as  to  the  relative  value  of  what  is  called  the 
"External  Evidence,"  that  is,  the  traces  of  its  influence,  di- 
rect or  indirect,  which  the  book  has  left  upon  subsequent 
writers.  Principal  Drummond,  the  most  recent,  and  one  of 
the  most  distinguished  defenders  of '  the  traditional  view, 
after  a  review  of  the  contents  in  which  he  feels  compelled  to 
"attribute  a  lower  historical  value  to  the  Fourth  Gospel  than 
to  the  Synoptics,"  so  that  "it  is  to  be  accepted  more  in  the 
spirit  than  in  the  letter,"  is  yet  so  impressed  with  the  evi- 
dences of  its  early  reception  in  the  Church  that  he 

"cannot  but  think  that  the  external  evidence  of  Johannine  author- 
ship possesses  great  weight,  and,  if  it  stood  alone,  would  entitle 
the  traditional  view  to  our  acceptance." 

His  ultimate  conclusion  is 

"The  external  evidence  ...  is  all  on  one  side,  and  for 
my  part  I  cannot  easily  repel  its  force.  A  considerable  mass  of 
the  internal  evidence  is  in  harmony  with  the  external.  A  number 
of  the  difficulties  (in  the  internal  evidence)  .  .  .  melt  away 
on  nearer  examination,  and  those  which  remain  are  not  sufficient 
to  weigh  down  the  balance."  ^ 

'  Drummond,  Character  and  Authorship  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  Scribner, 
1904,  pp.  64,351,  514. 

Fourth  Gospel — 2  17 


i8  '  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Over  against  this  clear  admission  of  the  decisive  influence 
of  the  external  evidence  in  the  formation  of  Principal  Drum- 
mond's  opinion  let  us  set  that  of  Professor  Sanday,  who 
welcomes  the  appearance  of  this  volume  from  his  distin- 
guished Oxford  colleague  with  extraordinary  enthusiasm.^ 
So  long  ago  as  1872,  Sanday  had  written 

"The  subject  of  the  external  evidence  has  been  pretty  well 
fought  out.  The  opposing  parties  are  probably  as  near  to  an  agree- 
ment as  they  ever  will  be.  It  will  hardly  be  an  unfair  statement 
of  the  case  for  those  who  reject  the  Johannean  authorship  of  the 
Gospel,  to  say,  that  the  external  evidence  is  compatible  with  that 
supposition.  And  on  the  other  hand,  we  may  equally  say  for 
those  who  accept  the  Johannean  authorship,  that  the  external 
evidence  would  not  be  sufficient  alone  to  prove  it."  ^ 

Since  that  early  utterance  three  great  English  treatises 
have  been  devoted,  exclusively  or  mainly,  to  this  aspect  of 
the  problem,  Ezra  Abbott  in  1880  redeemed  American 
scholarship  from  the  reproach  of  sterility  by  his  famous 
essay  The  Authorship  oj  the  Fourth  Gospel:  External  Evi- 
dences.^ This  was  in  reahty  a  supplement  to  Lightfoot's 
brilHant  Essays  in  reply  to  the  author  of  Supernatural  Re- 
ligion, and  became  a  classic  for  all  subsequent  "defenders."  ■* 
The  work  of  Principal  Drummond  already  referred  to,  which 
appeared  in  1904,  was  but  a  development  and  enlargement 
of  work  in  which  he  had  already  engaged  as  an  ally  of  San- 

1  The  Criticism  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  Scribner,  1905,  p.  32. 

2  Authorship  and  Historical  Character  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  considered  in 
reference  to  the  contents  of  the  Gospel  itself,  Macmillan,  1872,  p.  3. 

3  Unitarian  Review  for  Februaiy,  March,  June,  1880;  reprinted  by 
Scribner,  The  Fourth  Gospel,  etc.;  Essays  by  Ezra  Abbott,  Andrew  Peabody, 
and  Bishop  Lightfoot,  1891. 

*  We  should  mention  particularly  Lightfoot's  own  discussion,  "P^xternal 
Evidence  for  the  Authenticity  and  Genuineness  of  St.  John's  Gospel,"  re- 
printed from  lecture  notes  in  the  volume  of  his  Biblical  Essays,  Macmillan, 
1893. 


THE  MODERN  QUESTION  19 

day  so  early  as  1875.^  Finally,  but  a  few  weeks  before  Prin- 
cipal Drummond's  book,  there  had  also  appeared  the  most 
thorough  and  judicial  of  all  recent  arguments  for  the  Johan- 
nine  Authorship  from  the  external  evidence  from  the  pen  of 
Professor  V.  H.  Stanton  of  Cambridge.-  But  not  even  these 
three  consecutive  great  and  able  treatises  seem  to  have  ma- 
terially altered  Professor  Sanday's  original  conviction.  In 
his  recent  work  entitled  Criticism  oj  tJie  Fourth  Gospel  ^  the 
treatment  of  "the  External  Evidence"  is  still  relegated  to 
less  than  a  dozen  pages  in  the  last  of  the  eight  lectures. 
Dr.  Drummond  seems  to  him  "to  overstate  a  little — but  only 
a  Uttle — ^the  external  evidence  for  the  Gospel,"  ^  and  we  are 
left  to  infer  that  he  abides  by  the  conviction  in  which  he  had 
concurred  some  fourteen  years  before  ^  with  his  great  an- 
tagonist Schiirer,  that  the  decisive  arguments  must  fall 
within  the  field  of  the  internal  evidence. 

If  we  ask  how  this  singular  difference  in  valuation  of  the 
external  evidence  arises,  the  answer  is  not  far  to  seek.  For 
Lightfoot  and  Ezra  Abbott  the  great  antagonist  had  been 
the  author  of  Supernatural  Religion  together  with  the  now 
obsolete  school  of  Baur,  who  for  reasons  connected  with  his 
own  theory  of  the  early  history  of  the  Church  placed  the 
origin  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  at  the  extremely  late  date  of 

1  Three  articles  on  Justin  Martyr  and  the  Fourth  Gospel  originally  printed 
in  the  Theological  Review  for  October,  1875,  and  April  and  July,  1877,  are 
reproduced  in  Chapter  II  of  the  volume  above  referred  to,  including  pp.  84 
to  162.  Chapter  X  on  "Basilides"  appeared  first  in  the  Journal  of  Bill. 
Lit.  for  1892.    It  had  been  prepared  at  a  considerably  earlier  date. 

2  The  Gospels  as  Historical  Documents;  Part  I.  The  Early  Use  of  the  Gos- 
pels, Camljridge  University  Press,  1903. 

3  Scribncr,  1905,  pp.  238-248. 
i  P.  36. 

5  See  the  article  by  Emil  Schiirer  in  the  Contemporary  Rez'iew,  Septem- 
ber, 1891,  with  Sanday's  rejjly,  ibid.,  October,  1891.  This  reply  was  more 
fully  elaborated  by  Sanday  in  a  series  of  articles  in  the  Expositor  for  1891 
and  1892. 


20  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

170  A.  D.,  denying  even  its  existence  prior  to  the  times  of 
Justin  Martyr  (150-160)  and  Tatian  (160-180),  The  battle 
of  critics  began,  therefore,  as  a  question  of  dating,  and  the 
great  victories  of  Drummond,  Lightfoot,  and  Abbott  were 
won  by  the  use  of  the  external  evidence  to  disprove  this  un- 
tenably  late  date.  Principal  Drummond  does  not  need  to  be 
told  that  Baur's  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  Johannine  writings 
is  as  obsolete  as  the  Ptolemaic  geography.  And  yet,  as  we 
shall  see,  his  own  treatment  of  the  external  evidence  is  but 
nominally  adapted  to  modern  conditions  and  to  the  new 
alignment  of  the  opposing  critical  forces.  He  himself  de- 
scribes the  change  of  critical  opinion  as  follows: 

"The  appearance  of  the  first  volume  of  Keim's  Geschichte 
Jesu,  in  1867,  may  be  taken  as  marking  the  beginning  of  a  new 
period.  In  this  work  Keim  proved  himself  one  of  the  most  strenu- 
ous assailants  of  the  genuineness  of  the  Gospel,  but  at  the  same 
time  he  made  a  very  long  retreat  from  the  positions  of  Baur.  He 
conceded  that  the  Gospel  was  used  by  Justin  Martyr,  and  brought 
back  its  date  to  the  days  of  Trajan,  100-117  A.  d.^  He  thought 
it  probable  that  the  author  was  a  Jew  and  not  a  Gentile,  and 
dismissed  as  without  weight  some  of  the  arguments  which  had 
been  considered  adverse  to  this  view.  Thus  the  opponents  were 
brought  much  nearer  to  one  another,  and  those  who  were  not 
under  Tubingen  influence  began  to  feel  the  force  of  the  arguments 
which  were  pressed  against  the  apostolic  authorship;  and  many 
who  still  defended  the  genuineness  conceded  that  the  author's 
point  of  view  and  purpose  in  his  composition  were  not  primarily 
historical.  Thus,  in  Germany  at  least,  the  general  result  of  the 
controversy  has  been  to  extend  the  area  of  doubt  respecting  the 
authorship,  or,  if  not  the  authorship,  the  historical  accuracy  of 
the  Gospel,  and  on  the  other  hand  to  bring  the  opponents  of  its 
genuineness  much  nearer  to  the  traditional  view." 

It  is  hard  for  an  old  soldier  to  forsake  ground  won  in 

1  Principal  Drummond  omits  to  state  that  Keim  subsequently  relapsed  to 
the  date  130  A.  d. 


THE  MODERN   QUESTION  21 

battle,  even  when  it  has  lost  strategic  importance.  In  point 
of  fact  the  Modern  Form  of  the  Johannine  Question  scarcely 
concerns  itself  with  the  question  of  date.  It  is  a  question  not 
of  date,  but  of  authorship  and  historicity.  Therefore  the 
kind  of  external  evidence  once  relied  upon  to  prove  the  ex- 
istence of  the  Gospel  in  the  times  of  Polycarp,  Ignatius, 
Papias,  Justin,  and  Tatian,  is  almost  totally  irrelevant. 
To-day  nobody  denies  the  kind  of  existence  this  evidence  is 
alone  competent  to  prove;  while  on  the  other  hand,  evidence 
competent  to  prove  acceptance  of  this  Gospel  as  authorita- 
tive and  apostoHc,  or  even  as  sharing  in  the  respect  accorded 
to  the  Gospels  of  ]\Iatthew,  Alark,  and  (somewhat  later) 
Luke,  is  wanting  until  the  period  of  Tatian  and  Theophilus 
of  Antioch  (170-180  A.  d.).^  To  critics  of  the  present  gen- 
eration such  as  Edwin  Abbott,  Schmiedel,  and  Wellhausen, 
it  is  perfectly  apparent  that  Baur  mistook  the  period  of  dis- 
scjnination  for  that  of  origin.  To-day  Strauss'  dictum  com- 
paring the  Fourth  Gospel  in  its  indivisible  oneness  to  the 
holy  coat  "woven  without  seam"  is  no  longer  an  axiom. 
Half  a  century  of  literary  criticism  has  laid  bare  to  us  some- 
what more  of  the  formative  period  of  our  gospel  writings. 
We  are  obliged  to  admit,  nowadays,  whether  conservatives 
or  radicals,  that  mere  acquaintance  with  ideas  or  j)hraseology 
which  more  or  less  resemble  the  Johannine  is  not  equivalent 
to  acquaintance  with  our  canonical  Gosjxl  of  John,  inclusive 
of  its  appendix  and  its  latest  editorial  suj^plemcnts.  The  con- 
servative Oxford  committee  who  report  on  traces  of  Johan- 
nine influence  in  the  Epistles  of  Ignatius,-  confess 

"our  ignorance  how  far  some  of  tlie  Logia  (sayings)  of  Christ 

1  On  the  revolution  effected  about  170-180  A.  D.  in  the  acceptance  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  see  Keim,  Jesus  of  Nazara  (Engl,  transl.).  Vol.  I,  pj).  197- 
199. 

-  The  New  Testament  in  the  Apostolic  Fathers,  by  a  Committee  of  the 
Oxford  Society  of  Historical  Theology,  Oxford,  Clarendon  Press,  1905,  p.  83. 


22  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

recorded  by  John  may  have  been  current  in  Asia  Minor  before 
the  publication  of  the  Gospel.  If  they  formed  part  of  the  Apostle's 
oral  teaching,  they  must  have  been  familiar  to  his  disciples,  and 
may  have  been  collected  and  written  down  long  before  our  Gospel 
was  composed." 

Professor  Sanday  too  is  apparently  less  confident  to-day 
than  in  1872  of  "a  date  not  very  far  from  80-90  a.  d.,"  ^ 
for  the  Gospel  as  a  finished  whole.  He  prefers  to  speak  of 
the  Ignatian  letters  as  proving  the  existence  "well  before  the 
end  of  the  first  century,  of  a  compact  body  of  teaching  like 
that  which  we  find  in  the  Fourth  Gospel."  The  external 
evidence  to  his  mind  proves  the  "existence"  of  "the  sub- 
stance of  the  Fourth  Gospel"  "before  the  end  of  the  first 
century,"  and  this  he  considers  "a  considerable  step  towards 
the  belief  that  the  Gospel  existed  in  writing."  ' 

If  many  leaders  of  the  conservative  school  appear  to-day 
so  much  more  cautious  in  their  inferences  from  the  external 
evidence,  the  reason  becomes  fully  apparent  when  we  notice 
what  inferences  are  drawn  from  it  by  their  opponents. 

The  most  thorough  and  scholarly  treatment  of  the  ex- 
ternal evidence  accessible  to  the  English  reader,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  those  w^ho  repudiate  the  traditional  author- 
ship, is  that  of  the  veteran  scholar  Edwin  A.  Abbott  of 
London,  in  §§83  to  107  of  the  article  "Gospels"  in  the 
EncyclopcpMa  Biblica.^  Abbott  discusses  seriatim  all  the 
alleged  traces  of  influence  of  the  Johannine  writings  upon 
Clement  of  Rome  {ca.  96  a.  d.),  the  Didache  (?8o-iio), 
Barnabas  (132),  Simon  Magus  (?90-ioo),  Ignatius  (iio- 
117),  Polycarp  (110-117),  Papias  (Harnack:  145-160,  Ab- 
bott:   120-130),    Epistle    to   Diognetus    (Lightfoot:    former 

1  Authorship,  p.  12.  For  the  difficulty  in  the  way  of  so  early  a  dating,  see 
Stanton,  Gospels,  etc.,  pp.  18,  238. 

2  Criticism,  p.  245. 

3  Macmillan,  1901,  Vol.  II,  columns  1825  to  1839. 


THE  MODERN  QUESTION  23 

part  117-147;  latter  part  180-210),  Hcrmas  (114-156), 
Basilidcs  (11 7-138),  Marcion  (125-135),  and  Valcntinus 
( 1 41-156),  and  compares  these  with  the  use  made  at  first 
of  Matthew,  or  Matthew  and  Mark,  later  of  Luke.  He 
reaches  the  following  conclusion: 

"Up  to  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  though  there  are 
traces  of  Johannine  thought  and  tradition,  and  immature  approxi- 
mations to  the  Johannine  Logos-doctrine,  yet  in  some  writers 
{e.  g.,  Barnabas  and  Simon)  we  find  rather  what  Jn.  develops,  or 
what  Jn.  attacks,  than  anything  that  imitates  Jn.,  and  in  others 
(e.  g.,  Polycarp,  Ignatius  and  Papias)  mere  war-cries  of  the  time, 
or  phrases  of  a  Logos-doctrine  still  in  flux,  or  apocalyptic  tradi- 
tions of  which  Jn.  gives  a  more  spiritual  and  perhaps  a  truer 
version.  There  is  nothing  to  prove,  or  even  suggest,  that  *Jn. 
was  recognized  as  a  gospel.'  " 

The  relatively  voluminous  ^  treatises  of  Justin  Martyr 
(153-160  A,  D.)  form  a  class  by  themselves  for  all  students  of 
the  external  evidence.  The  surprising  non-appearance  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel  among  his  recognized  authorities,  at  least 
in  a  degree  approximating  his  "more  than  one  hundred"  ^ 
employments  of  the  Synoptists,  is  one  of  the  admitted  diffi- 
culties of  the  supporters  of  tradition.  Drummond,  for  ex- 
ample, after  accumulating  all  possible  traces  of  the  use  of 
John,  meets  the  question  "Why  has  Justin  not  quoted  the 
Fourth  Gospel  at  least  as  often  as  the  other  three?"  with 
certain  analogies  whose  validity  we  must  test  hereafter.  Ab- 
bott, on  the  other  hand,  meets  the  alleged  traces  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  in  Justin  by  an  analysis  even  more  thorough  than 
Drummond's,  resulting  in  the  following  summary: 

1  The  two  Apologies  and  the  Dialogue  ii-ith  Trypho  occupy  together  about 
six  times  the  space  of  the  eight  Epistles  of  Polycarp  and  Ignatius  combined. 

2  So  Schmiedel,  article  "  John,  son  of  Zebedee,"  Encycl.  Bibl.,  Vol.  II, 
column  2546,  §  44.  Drummond,  Character  and  Authorship,  p.  loo,  counts 
"somewhere  about  170  citations  from  or  references  to  the  Gospels."  Among 
these  he  probably  includes  what  he  regards  as  "three  apparent  quotations" 
from  John.    See  below. 


24  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

"  It  appears,  then,  that  (i)  when  Justin  seems  to  be  alluding  to 
Jn.,  he  is  really  alluding  to  the  Old  Testament,  or  Barnabas,  or 
some  Christian  tradition  different  from  Jn.,  and  often  earlier  than 
Jn.;  (2)  when  Justin  teaches  what  is  practically  the  doctrine  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel,  he  supports  it,  not  by  what  can  easily  be  found 
in  the  Fourth,  but  by  what  can  hardly,  with  any  show  of  reason, 
be  found  in  the  Three;  (3)  as  regards  Logos-doctrine,  his  views 
are  ahen  from  Jn.  These  three  distinct  lines  of  evidence  converge 
to  the  conclusion  that  Justin  either  did  not  know  Jn.,  or,  as  is 
more  probable,  knew  it,  but  regarded  it  with  suspicion,  partly  be- 
cause it  contradicted  Luke  his  favorite  Gospel,  partly  because  it 
was  beginning  to  be  freely  used  by  his  enemies  the  Valentinians. 
(4)  It  may  also  be  fairly  added  that  literary  evidence  may  have 
weighed  with  him.  He  seldom  or  never  quotes  (as  many  early 
Christian  writers  do)  from  apocryphal  works.  The  title  he  gives 
to  the  Gospels  ('Memoirs  of  the  Apostles')  shows  the  value  he 
set  on  what  seemed  to  him  the  very  words  of  Christ  noted  down 
by  the  apostles.  Accepting  the  Apocalypse  as  the  work  of  {Trypho 
81)  the  Apostle  John  he  may  naturally  have  rejected  the  claim  of 
the  Gospel  to  proceed  from  the  same  author.  This  may  account  for 
a  good  many  otherwise  strange  phenomena  in  Justin's  writings. 
He  could  not  help  accepting  much  of  the  Johannine  doctrine,  but 
he  expressed  it,  as  far  as  possible,  in  non- Johannine  language; 
and,  where  he  could,  he  went  back  to  earlier  tradition  for  it,  such 
as  he  found,  for  example,  in  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas." 

As  between  the  inferences  drawn  by  "defenders"  and  by 
opponents  of  the  Johannine  Authorship  only  a  careful  study 
of  the  literature  itself  can  enable  us  to  judge.  What  we  are 
now  attempting  to  make  clear  is  the  common  ground  of 
agreement,  the  fact  that  in  our  day  the  debate  concerns  not 
date,  but  authorship;  because  the  most  radical  opponent 
can  easily  afford  to  grant  the  utmost  claims  the  conservative 
scholar  is  able  to  make  from  the  external  evidence  as  respects 
the  mere  "existence  well  before  the  end  of  the  first  century 
of  a  compact  body  of  teaching  Uke  that  which  we  find  in  the 


THE  MODERN   QUESTION  25 

Fourth  Gospel."  An  early  example  of  this  coincidence  of 
radical  and  conservative  in  the  mere  matter  of  dating  was 
furnished  by  Keim,  as  already  shown.  In  our  day  Zahn, 
"the  prince  of  conservative  scholars,"  is  still  arguing  for  the 
date  80-90  A.  D.,  for  the  w^ork  in  its  present  form/  while 
Wellhausen  on  purely  internal  grounds  is  arguing  for  sub- 
stantially the  same  date,  with  the  difference  that  for  him,  it 
only  marks  the  beginnings  of  a  literary  process  which  culmi- 
nated, through  a  series  of  supplementations  and  reconstruc- 
tions, not  earlier  than  135  a.  d.,^  in  our  canonical  Fourth 
Gospel.  What  Wellhausen  thinks  of  the  Johannine  Author- 
ship appears  from  his  statement  that  Schwartz  has  "proved" 
the  death  of  John  the  son  of  Zebedee  along  with  James  his 
brother  in  Jerusalem  in  44  a.  d.^ 

Schmiedel,  in  Professor  Sanday's  view,  "understates  the 
(external)  evidence  for  the  Fourth  Gospel"  prior  to  the  year 
180; ''  but  he  esteems  him  a  competent  and  sincere  scholar, 
albeit  "cold  and  severe,"  a  "lawyer  who  pursues  his  adver- 
sary from  point  to  point  with  relentless  acumen."  ■'  Pro- 
fessor Sanday  is  "not  so  sure  as  he  (Schmiedel)  is  that  there 
is  no  allusion  to  the  Gospel  in  Barnabas  or  Hermas,  where 
it  is  found  {e.  g.)  by  Keim,  or  in  the  Elders  of  Papias,  where 
it  is  found  {e.  g.)  by  Harnack."  '^  But  at  least  Schmiedel  can- 
not be  ruled  out  of  court  as  unqualified  to  pronounce  an 
opinion  on  the  external  evidence,  and  to  understand  what 

1  EinleiluHg,  Bd.  II,  §  69. 

^  Evangelium  Johannis,  1908.  Jn.  5:43  contains  in  Wcllhausen's  view 
(pp.  27,  126),  a  reference  to  Bar  Kochba  (132-135  a.  d.).  Tiic  Appendix 
(Chapter  21)  is  not  considered  in  the  effort  at  dating,  p.  126. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  119.    See  below,  Chapter  V. 

*  Criticism,  p.  240. 

5  Ibid.,  p.  27. 

8  Ibid.,  p.  241.  Schmiedel's  reasons  for  disagreeing  with  Harnack  on  this 
point  are  given  in  §  45  of  his  article  "  John,  son  of  Zebedee,"  above  referred 
to.  On  this  point,  as  well  as  the  "allusions"  in  Barnabas  and  Hermas,  our 
own  judgment  is  given  in  Chapter  II. 


26  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

questions  are,  and  what  are  not,  now  regarded  as  within  its 
capacity,  we  must  hear  also  the  opinion  of  Schmiedel. 

After  emphasizing  the  "distinction  between  testimonies  ex- 
pressly favorable  to  the  apostolic  authorship,  and  those  which 
only  vouch  for  the  existence  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  without 
conveying  any  judgment  as  to  its  authorship"  Schmiedel 
protests  against  the  heaping  up  of  alleged  testimonies  of 
the  latter  class  as  if  they  belonged  to  the  former,  as  follows  : 

"Most  of  the  early  Christian  writings  which  were  held  (by 
apologists  of  the  last  generation)  to  bear  testimony  to  the  Fourth 
Gospel — and  of  these  precisely  the  oldest  and  therefore  most  im- 
portant— in  reality  do  not  justify  the  claim  based  upon  them. 

(a)  They  show  manifold  agreements  with  Jn.,  but  these  con- 
sist only  of  single,  more  or  less  characteristic  words  or  formulas, 
or  other  coincidences  which  might  equally  well  have  passed  into 
currency  by  the  channel  of  oral  tradition.  The  great  number  of 
such  agreements  does  in  very  deed  prove  that  the  Johannine 
formulas  and  catch-words  were  very  widely  diffused,  and  that  the 
Johannine  ideas  had  been,  so  to  speak,  for  decennia  in  the  air. 
We  should  run  great  danger  of  allowing  ourselves  to  be  misled, 
however,  if,  merely  because  it  so  happens  that  such  phrases  and 
turns  of  expression  first  became  known  and  familiar  to  ourselves 
through  the  Fourth  Gospel,  we  were  at  once  to  conclude  that  the 
writers  in  question  can  have  taken  them  from  that  source  alone. 
The  true  state  of  the  case  may  very  easily  be  quite  the  opposite; 
the  words  and  phrases  circulated  orally;  as  they  circulated  they 
received  an  ever  more  pregnant,  pointed,  memorable  form,  and 
the  writer  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  not  as  the  first  but  as  the  last  in 
the  series  of  transmitters,  set  them  down  in  a  form  and  in  a  con- 
nection which  excelled  that  of  the  others,  and  thus  his  work  came 
to  appear  as  if  it  were  the  source  of  the  others."  ^ 

Examination  of  all  these  resemblances,  and  estimate  of 
their  bulk  and  importance  as  compared  with  the  use  made 
by  the  same  early  writers  of  the  other  gospels,  and  as  com- 

1  Encycl.  Bibl.,  Vol.  II,  s.  v.  "  John,  son  of  Zebedee,"  §  45. 


THE  MODERN   QUESTION  27 

pared  with  what  on  the  traditional  theory  of  authorship  we 
might  have  reason  to  expect,  leads  Schmiedel  to  the  follow- 
ing conclusion: 

"If  we  were  dealing  with  a  book  attributed  to  an  undistin- 
guished man,  such  as,  for  example,  the  Epistle  of  Jude,  it  could 
not  be  held  to  be  very  surprising  that  proofs  of  acquaintance  with 
it  do  not  emerge  until  some  considerable  time  after  its  production. 
The  case  is  very  different,  however,  with  a  gospel  written  by  an 
eye-witness.  Papias  noticed  defects  in  the  Gospel  of  Mark;  the 
third  evangelist  noticed  them  in  the  writings  of  all  his  predecessors 
(f/.  GOSPELS,  §§  65,  153).  The  writing  of  an  eye-witness  would 
immediately  on  its  publication  have  been  received  with  the  keenest 
interest,  however  vit)lently  it  may  have  conflicted  with  the  gospels 
hitherto  known.  It  would  at  least  by  these  contradictions  have 
attracted  attention  and  necessarily  have  given  occasion  to  such 
remarks  as  that  'the  gospels  seem  to  contradict  one  another'  of 
Claudius  ApoUinaris  (o-racrtd^cii/  SoKtt  ra  evayyeAux)  (§§42  and 
546).  No  mention  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  which  we  can  recog- 
nize as  such  carries  us  back  further  than  to  140  A.  D.  As  late  as 
152  (Acad.,  ist  Feb.,  i8g6,  p.  98),  Justin,  who  nevertheless  lays  so 
great  stress  upon  the  '  Memorabilia  of  the  Apostles,'  regards  Jn. — 
if  indeed  he  knows  it  at  all — with  distrust  and  appropriates  from 
it  but  a  very  few  sayings.  Therefore,  notwithstanding  the  fact 
that  conservative  theology  still  cherishes  the  belief  that  the  ex- 
ternal evidence  supplies  the  best  possible  guarantee  for  the  genuine- 
ness of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  we  find  ourselves  compelled  not  only 
to  recognize  the  justice  of  the  remark  of  Reuss  that '  the  incredible 
trouble  which  has  been  taken  to  collect  external  evidences  only 
serves  to  show  that  there  really  are  none  of  the  sort  which  were 
really  wanted,'  but  also  to  set  it  up  even  as  a  fundamental  principle 
of  criticism  that  the  production  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  must  be 
assigned  to  the  shortest  possible  date  before  the  time  at  which 
traces  of  acquaintance  with  it  begin  to  appear.  Distinct  declara- 
tions as  to  its  genuineness  begin  certainly  not  earlier  than  about 
170  A.  D.  (§42)."^ 

1  Ibid.,  §  49. 


28  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

From  the  foregoing  extracts  summarizing  the  conclusions 
of  representative  scholars  on  both  sides  it  will  be  apparent 
that  the  road  to  agreement  does  not  lie  along  the  line  of  heap- 
ing up  more  or  less  fanciful  resemblances  to  Johannine 
thought  or  phraseology,  from  the  period  before  the  Gospel 
attains  to  its  wide  dissemination  and  authoritative  stand- 
ing about  170  A.  D.  Neither  does  it  he  along  the  line  of  ad- 
ding to  the  already  abundant  testimonies  from  the  period 
of  the  half  century  of  conflict  following  Tatian  (170  a.  d.), 
during  which  its  ardent  advocates  were  triumphantly  over- 
powering the  weak  opposition  offered  at  first  to  its  claims  at 
Rome.  The  accumulation  of  alleged  resemblances  in  writers 
of  the  former  period  has  been  carried  already  to  a  point 
where  in  many  cases  they  certainly  appear  to  opposing  critics, 
and  may  well  seem  to  the  impartial  observer,  to  be  merely 
fanciful;  in  other  cases  they  will  be  held  to  prove  no  more 
than  is  matter  of  common  consent.  The  many  and  wide- 
spread assertions  of  the  Johannine  Authorship  of  this  Gospel, 
coupled  with  an  employment  of  it  with  a  frequency  and  re- 
gard equal  to,  or  even  beyond  the  other  three,  which  begin 
to  appear  about  180  a.  d.,  coincidently  with  the  beginnings 
of  the  debate  at  Rome,  will  prove  indeed — if  proof  were 
needed — how  acceptable  to  the  Christianity  of  the  time  was 
the  type  of  doctrine  of  the  Ephesian  Church,  but  can  throw 
but  little  light  on  the  actual  origin  of  the  Gospel. 

Whether,  then,  we  attribute  the  Gospel  directly,  or  in- 
directly to  John,  or  to  some  wholly  different  writer,  what  we 
seek  to-day  from  the  external  evidence  is  not  so  much  the 
Gospel's  "date"  in  the  old  sense  of  the  word;  for  on  this  the 
evidence  we  have  is  incapable  of  shedding  more  than  a  very 
limited  amount  of  light.  To-day  we  inquire  for  its  "forma- 
tive period";  and  the  "formative  period  "  of  the  Fourth  Gos- 
pel has  already  been  determined  as  closely  as  the  data  avail- 
able, or  likely  to  become  available,  admit.     It  is  approxi- 


THE  MODERN  QUESTION  29 

matcly  the  close  of  the  first  century  and  opening  decades  of  / 
the  second.^  Proconsular  Asia-  with  the  great  headquarters 
of  the  Pauline  mission  field,  Ephesus,  as  its  metropolis,  was 
the  region  in  which  the  group  of  writings  attributed  to  the 
Apostle  John  first  came  into  circulation,  in  supplementation 
of  the  Epistles  of  Paul,  and  probably  the  Gospels  of  Mat- 
thew and  ]Mark  and  the  so-called  First  Epistle  of  Peter.  In 
the  threefold  form  of  Gospel,  Epistles,  and  Prophecy,  or 
Apocalypse,  these  writings  served  the  ])urpose  of  a  canon  of 
New  Testament  scripture  to  "the  churches  of  Asia."  The 
ancient  tradition^  which  assigns  the  origin  of  the  "Johan-) 
nine"  writings  to  this  region  and  this  approximate  date  is 
therefore  in  substance  correct.'* 

Since,  then,  the  modern  form  of  the  Johannine  question  is 
but  slightly,  if  at  all,  a  question  of  date  or  provenance,  it  is 
a  primary  condition  of  clear  thinking  as  regards  the  external 
evidence  that  we  distinguish  between  (i)  evidences  which 
bear  on  "the  existence  of  a  body  of  teaching  like  that  which 
we  find  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,"  evidences  which  for  the 
period  anterior  to  181  A.  d.  consist  of  mere  resemblances 
to  its  doctrine  or  phraseology,  and  (2)  evidences  which  bear 
upon  the  question  of  authorship;  these  latter  being  either 
confined  to  the  period  of  dissemination  beginning  with 
Tatian  and  Theophilus  (170-180),  or  consisting  of  inferences 

1  Hamack  considers  {Chronologie,  p.  680)  "that  the  Gospel  was  not  written 
later  than  circa  no  A.  d.  is  an  assured  historical  fact."  Moffat  {Historical 
New  Testament,  p.  495)  fixes  on  95-115,  "  nearer  the  latter  year,  in  all  proba- 
bility, than  the  former." 

2  The  designation  "Asia"  usually  applies,  in  reference  to  this  period,  to  the 
Roman  province  of  Asia,  the  district  immediately  surrounding  Ephesus. 

3  Clement  of  Alexandria  {Hy polyposes,  on  authority  of  "the  early  Presby- 
ters," quoted  by  Eusebius,  iT.  £.  VI.  xiv.  7)  as  to  the  Gospel;  Irenaeus  (iJaer. 
V,  XXX,  3)  as  to  Revelation. 

*  On  this  date  and  provenance  as  matter  of  common  consent  see,-  e.  g., 
Stanton,  Gospels  as  Historical  Docuvtents,  1903,  p.  19,  and  Schmiedel, 
Encycl.  Bibl.,  s.  v.  "  John,  son  of  Zebedee,"  §§  52,  53. 


30  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

to  be  drawn  from  the  mode  and  measure  of  unacknowledged 
employment  in  the  earlier  time. 

It  is  also  vitally  important  to  define  our  terminology  and 
to  use  it  consistently  with  the  recognized  practice  of  criticism, 
not  classifying  as  "quotations"  mere  resemblances  of  thought 
or  language,  more  or  less  remote,  which  may  or  may  not  be 
due  to  acquaintance  with  the  Fourth  Gospel.  For  mere 
resemblances  of  this  kind  we  propose  to  employ  the  term 
"echo,"  or  "influence,"  reserving  the  term  "quotation"  for 
instances  where  appeal  is  directly  made  to  a  definite  writing 
so  described  as  to  be  recognizable,  and  attributed  to  a  par- 
ticular author  mentioned  by  name,  or  otherwise  defined  as 
the  authority  to  whom  appeal  is  made.  The  number  and 
importance  of  "echoes"  and  "influences"  will  varv  of  course 
with  the  keenness  of  the  critic's  hearing,  which  in  the  present 
case  has  been  stimulated  to  the  utmost  by  the  conviction  that 
"the  genuineness  of  St.  John's  Gospel  is  the  centre  of  the 
position  of  those  who  uphold  the  historical  truth  of  the 
record  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  given  us  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment." ^  The  German  critic  who  has  been  accused  of 
"hearing  the  grass  grow"  has  abundant  opportunity  in  this 
field  to  retaliate  upon  his  English  opponent.'  Unfortunately 
for  the  latter  the  accumulation  of  these  echoes  and  influences, 
so  long  as  they  remain  manifestly  inferior  in  mode  and  meas- 
ure of  employment  not  only  to  what,  as  Schmiedel  points 
out,  we  should  have  a  right  to  expect  on  the  theory  of  Johan- 
nine  authorship,  but  conspicuously  inferior  to  the  employ- 
ments of  Synoptic  tradition,  creates  a  new  and  serious  em- 
barrassment; and  the  more  the  witnesses  are  multiplied  the 
worse  the  embarrassment  becomes.     We  refer  of  course  to 

1  Lightfoot,  as  quoted  above,  p.  i. 

2  A  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  this  type  seems  to  be  afforded  in  the  recent 
work  The  Four  Gospels  in  early  Church  History,  by  Thos.  Nicol,  D.  D., 
1908.    See  the  review  by  W.  Bauer  in  Th.  Ltz.,  1909,  7. 


THE  MODERN  QUESTION  31 

the  objection  already  noticed  in  the  case  of  Justin  Martyr, 
and  which  is  commonly  spoken  of  as  if  it  were  a  phenomenon 
of  his  writings  alone,  viz.,  the  singular  neglect  of  a  Gospel 
which  of  all  other  writings  would  naturally  be  the  first  re- 
sort for  Christians  in  the  conditions  supposed.  The  argu- 
ment is  wont  to  be  confined  to  Justin,  because  with  Justin 
we  reach  an  age  when  by  common  consent  the  Fourth  Gospel 
must  have  been  already  current,  and  an  author,  relatively 
voluminous,  who  in  at  least  one  instance  gives  highly  prob- 
able evidence  of  acc^uaintance  with  it.  But  there  is  no  reason 
save  the  more  doubtful  character  of  the  alleged  echoes  and 
influences  in  earUer  writers,  and  the  more  limited  compass 
of  the  material,  why  these  should  not  be  included  in  the  ar- 
gument. Professor  Stanton,  who  alone  of  the  "defenders" 
makes  serious  attempts  to  grapple  with  the  objection  from 
the  neglect  of  John  in  the  earliest  period,  considers  that 
"the  absence  of  any  mention  of  the  Apostle  John  is  very 
strange  only  in  the  Epistles  of  Ignatius."  ^  Others  might 
prefer  to  say  "in  Polycarp,"  considering  how  all  the  Johan- 
nine  tradition  is  made  to  hang  on  the  alleged  relation  be- 
tween John  and  Polycarp.-  Still  others  might  find  the  neg- 
lect of  Papias  harder  to  account  for,^  seeing  that  Papias  ex- 
plicitly acknowledges  the  defective  and  secondary  character 
of  Synoptic  tradition.  In  reaHty  the  phenomena  are  the 
same  in  all  the  writers  of  the  early  period,  and  the  more  the 
number  is  increased  by  the  addition  of  remote  and  dubious 
echoes  and  influences  from  still  other  writers,  the  more 
serious  becomes  the  problem.  Echoes  and  influences  there 
may  well  be.    If  in  mode  and  measure  they  corresponded  to 

1  Gospels  as  Historical  Documents,  p.   236.     On  the  silence  of  Justin's 
predecessors,  and  Stanton's  explanation  see  Chapter  II. 

2  On  Polycarp's  alleged  use  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  as  compared  with  Paul 
and  the  Synoptics  see  below,  Chapter  II. 

3  So,  e.  g.,  Keim,  op.  oil..  Vol.  I,  p.  197. 


32  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

the  influential  position  a  writing  such  as  our  Fourth  Gospel, 
acknowledged  as  the  work  of  the  last  surviving  apostle, 
would  necessarily  hold,  they  might  concci\ably  make  good 
the  absence  of  direct  quotation  or  appeal.  But  even  the 
echoes,  instead  of  becoming  clearer  and  more  unmistakable 
as  we  approach  their  supposed  origin,  "tremble  away  into 
silence"  and  leave  us  bewildered.  Starting  with  Justin, 
whose  one  resemblance  in  employing  Johannine  phraseology 
to  combine  the  deutero-Pauline  doctrine  of  the  "bath  of  re- 
generation" with  the  teaching  of  Jesus,^  makes  us  practi- 
cally certain  that  he  was  really  acquainted  with  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  we  pass  backward  through  Valentinus,  Papias,  Basil- 
ides,  Polycarp,  Ignatius,  Hermas,  to  Barnabas,  the  Didache 
and  Clement  of  Rome.  In  Papias  as  in  Justin  we  have 
true  "quotation"  of  Revelation,  and  probable  use  of  First 
John,  with  a  much  disputed  possibility,  or  probability,  of 
employment  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.-  As  to  Basilides  (133 
A.  D.)  and  Valentinus  (150-160  a.  d.)  Sanday  himself  can 
go  no  further  than  to  say,  "There  remains  in  my  own  mind 
a  slight  degree  of  probability  that  thty  used  the  Gospel."  ^ 
In  Polycarp  there  is  found  one  "battle-cry"  from  First  John. 
In  Ignatius  a  very  few  much  disputed  echoes  and  a  diffused 

1  After  describing  the  rite  of  baptism  in  the  name  of  the  Trinity  Justin  adds 
{Apol.  I,  ixi),  "For  Christ  also  said,  Unless  ye  be  born  again,  ye  shall  not 
enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  But  that  it  is  impossible  for  those  who  are 
once  born  to  enter  into  the  wombs  of  those  who  brought  them  forth  is  evident 
to  all."  The  phrase  {avayivvt^ffis)  by  which  he  refers  to  the  doctrine  is  that 
of  Tit.  3:5  and  I  Pt.  1:3,  23.  As  to  his  relation  to  Jn.  3:3-5  Drummond 
(p.  87)  justly  says,  "It  cannot  be  denied  that  this  passage  immediately  re- 
minds one  of  Jn.  3:3-5,  and  all  critics,  as  far  as  I  know,  acknowledge  that 
there  is  some  relation  which  is  more  than  accidental  between  the  two  pas- 
sages. As  little  can  it  be  denied  that  it  is  not  quoted  verbally  from  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  but  has  variations  both  in  language  and  meaning." 

2  On  this  see  Chapter  II. 

^  Criticism,  p.  247.  On  the  evidence  from  these  two  Gnostic  writers  see 
Chapter  II. 


THE   MODERN  QUESTION  33 

and  equally  disputed  influence  of  the  Gospel.  In  Hermas 
Stanton  thinks  he  can  detect  traces,  and  Sanday  is  "not  so 
sure"  as  Schmiedel  that  there  are  none.^  As  to  Barnabas 
his  feeling  is  the  same,  although  even  the  famous  Oxford 
committee,  who  have  certainly  not  erred  in  the  direction  of 
radicahsm,  "must  regard  Barnabas  as  unacquainted  with 
the  Fourth  Gospel."  -  He  finds  also  in  the  eucharistic 
prayer  of  the  Didache  a  resemblance  in  the  phrase,  "Remem- 
ber, Lord,  thy  Church  to  deUver  it  from  all  evil  and  to  per- 
fect it  in  thy  love"  to  I  Jn.  4: 17,  18;  Jn.  17:  23,  which  again, 
in  spite  of  the  silence  of  the  O.xford  Society's  Committee, 
he  thinks  "cannot  be  wholly  accidental."^  None  of  these 
really  responsible  "defenders"  consents  to  follow  the  rash 
echo-chasers  who  wander  up  and  down  the  disappointing 
pages  of  Clement  of  Rome.^ 

Now  in  answer  to  these  phenomena  of  steady  decrease 

1  Ibid.,  p.  241.     On  Stanton's  supposed  traces  in  Hermas  see  Chapter  II. 

2  The  New  Testament  in  the  Apostolic  Fathers,  Report  of  the  Committee 
of  the  Oxford  Society  of  Historical  Theology-,  1905,  p.  23. 

3  Criticism,  p.  246.  The  committee  report  three  passages  {Did.  ix,  2,  3 
and  X,  3)  which  "seem  reminiscent  of  Johannine  ideas  and  terminolog}'." 
They  decline,  however,  to  class  these  among  even  probable  employments. 
The  phrase  quoted  by  Sanday,  if  its  pedigree  must  be  traced,  is  more  nearly 
related  to  Eph.  3:14;  5:32  than  to  the  Johannine  passages. 

*  Stanton  (Gospels,  etc.)  is  conscious  of  the  serious  objection  to  a  date  so 
early  as  80-90  A.  D.  (Zahn,  Sanday)  which  emerges  from  the  silence  of 
Clement  of  Rome,  who,  as  he  says  (p.  18),  "gives  no  clear  sign  that  he  knew 
this  Gospel."  Stanton  would  account  for  this  by  a  date  "not  earlier  than 
the  last  decade  of  the  first  centurj'"  (p.  238).  The  only  resemblance  noticed 
by  him  in  Clement  is  referred  to  in  a  footnote  on  p.  18.  "The  thought"  of 
Clem,  xlii,  i  seems  to  him  to  "correspond  closely"  to  Jn.  20:21.  No  re- 
semblances are  adduced  in  the  Apology  of  Aristides  nor  in  the  so-called 
Second  Epistle  of  Clement.  These  with  Clement  of  Rome  cover  a  space 
somewhat  greater  than  the  Gospel  of  Matthew.  Stanton  (p.  152,  note) 
agrees  with  Harnack  in  dating  the  Epistle  to  Diognetus,  cc,  i-x,  ca.  200  a.  d., 
and  cc,  xi-xii  still  later.  Lightfoot's  claim  of  an  echo  of  Jn.  in  this  epistle, 
which  Edw.  Abbott  endorses  (see  above,  p.  22)  may  therefore  be  disre- 
garded. 

Fourth  Gospel — 3 


34  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

in  the  employment  and  recognition  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  by 
those  who  might  reasonably  be  supposed  to  know  it,  as  we 
approach  the  date  and  region  where  its  currency  and  au- 
thority should  be  at  a  maximum,  it  is  not  enough  to  utter 
general  disparagements  of  "the  argument  from  silence"; 
because  the  external  evidence,  from  the  moment  we  pass  into 
the  debated  period,  back  of  the  time  of  express  and  undis- 
puted quotations,  becomes  of  necessity  an  "argument  from 
silence."  To  quarrel  with  that  is  to  quarrel  with  the  external 
evidence  for  being  external;  and  it  is  by  challenge  of  the  "de- 
fenders" that  we  have  entered  this  field.  If  it  were  a  mere 
idiosyncracy  of  Justin  Martyr  it  might  perhaps  be  enough  to 
say  with  Sanday:  "The  whole  chapter  of  accidents  is  open 
before  us,"  and  to  commend  it  as  "sounder  method  to  fall 
back  with  Dr.  Drummond  simply  upon  our  ignorance."  ^ 
But  we  are  deahng  with  a  whole  group  of  writers,  many  of 
whom  could  not  have  been  ignorant  of  the  supposed  work  of 
John  and  all  of  whom  had  the  strongest  motives  for  referring 
to  it.  It  does  not  seriously  affect  this  argument  to  demand 
an  estimate  of  "the  total  bulk  of  the  literature  on  which  the 
argument  is  based."  ^'  With  the  authors  named  there  might 
very  properly  be  included  some  of  the  later  books  of  the 
New  Testament;^  yet  even  without  these,  the  "thin  octavo 
volume"  of  which  Professor  Sanday  speaks'*  which  should 
include  all  second  century  Christian  writers  down  to  the 
period  of  real  quotations,  would  bulk  considerably  larger 
than  the  New  Testament  itself,  and  is  at  all  events  sufficient 
to  exhibit  a  contrast  in  mode  and  measure  of  employment  to 


1  Sanday,  Criticism,  p.  247. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  47. 

3  Even  Stanton,  who  admits  the  validity  of  this  inclusion,  passes  over  un- 
mentioned  the  important  epistle  of  First  Peter  (go-iio  A.  D.  ?),  Gospels,  etc., 
p.  165. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  39, 


THE   MODERN   QUESTION  35 

which  not  even  the  most  unwilling  eye  can  be  blind,  between 
the  Synoptic  Gospels  and  the  Fourth. 

To  what  extent,  then,  has  Principal  Drummond  accom- 
modated himself  in  his  momentous  inferences  from  the  ex- 
ternal evidence  to  the  Modern  Form  of  the  Question? 
His  most  jubilant  and  indeed  extravagant  commender — for 
in  the  matter  of  commendation  even  Sanday  can  be  extrava- 
gant— admits  that  Drummond 's  book  gives  the  appearance 
of  being  "written  round"  certain  articles  contributed  by  the 
author  to  the  debates  of  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago,  and 
that  there  is  a  certain  inadequacy  about  an  argument  in 
this  field  which  does  not  so  much  as  recognize  the  existence 
of  Schmiedel  and  JiiHcher,  two  of  the  leading  critics  on  the 
opposing  side.^  We  may  add  that  Drummond's  discussion 
of  the  citations  of  Justin  with  which  we  arc  now  concerned  is 
equally  silent  as  to  Bousset  whose  treatment  of  this  sub- 
ject -  would  probably  interest  the  modern  reader  more  than 
those  of  Hilgenfeld  ^  and  Thoma/  and  gives  only  nominal  at- 
tention even  to  Edwin  Abbott. 

But  Sanday  is  specially  filled  with  admiration  for  the  "free- 
dom" of  this  author  "from  all  dogmatic  prepossessions,"  his 
"judicial  habit  of  weighing  all  that  is  to  be  said  on  both  sides," 
his  "impartiality."  ^  And  this  is  not  greatly  hindered  even 
by  a  recognition  that 

"  On  the  whole  question  of  the  external  evidence,  Dr.  Drum- 

1  Sanday  in  Hihhert  Journal,  Vol.  II  (1903-04),  pp.  616  ff. 

2  Abbott  in  Enc.  Bihl.,  s.  v.  "Gospels."  Bousset  in  EvangeUencitale 
Jusiins  des  Mdrtyrers,  1891.  A  note  on  p.  86,  referring  to  Abbott's  articles 
in  the  Modern  Review  for  July  and  October,  1882,  and  another  on  p.  130, 
referring  to  Encycl.  Bihl.  ii,  1836,  are  found.  For  an  adecjuate  bibliography 
of  the  subject  see  Preuschen,  Antilegomena,  1901,  p.  93. 

3  Kritische  Untersuchungen  iiber  die  Evangelien  Justins,  1850. 

*  Justins'  literarisches  Verhaltniss  zii  Paulus  u.  ziim  Johannesei'angelium, 
in  Ltz./iir  wiss.  Theol.,  1875. 
5  Criticism,  pp.  33-36. 


36  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

mond's  view  might  almost  be  called  optimistic.  He  endorses  af- 
firmatively almost  every  item  of  evidence  that  has  ever  been 
alleged."  ^ 

For  ourselves  we  yield  not  even  to  Sanday  himself  in 
admiration  of  Principal  Drummond's  scholarship,  and  we 
are  sure  of  his  sincerity  of  conviction;  but  we  cannot  admit 
that  an  author,  however  learned  and  sincere,  who  has  merely 
"written  round"  the  brief  he  presented  as  an  advocate  some 
thirty  years  ago,  recasting  it  into  the  form  of  a  judicial  ver- 
dict, can  be  considered  to  occupy  a  position  of  superior  im- 
partiality. In  applying  again  his  old-time  arguments  against 
modern  writers  whom  he  seems  to  regard  as  occupying  sub- 
stantially the  same  position  as  his  cjuondam  antagonists, 
Principal  Drummond  is  doubtless  free  from  the  embarrass- 
ments which  beset  scholars  of  less  liberal  ecclesiastical  com- 
munions. But  few  temptations  to  a  biased  judgment  are 
found  in  practice  to  be  more  effective  with  the  scholar  than 
consistency  with  his  own  opinion  once  published,  and  in 
this  respect  none  could  be  more  thoroughly  committed  in 
advance.  Wc  recognize  indeed  a  studied  reserve  in  the 
phraseology  wherein  Principal  Drummond  so  summarizes 
his  present  conclusions  as  not  to  seem  to  make  unreasonable 
demands.  It  may  account  for  the  praise  accorded  by  Pro- 
fessor Sanday  to  his  "  impartiaUty"  and  "judicial  habit." 
But  this  pertains  rather  to  the  form.  That  which  affects  the 
substance  is  the  "optimism"  which  "endorses  affirmatively 
almost  every  item  of  evidence  which  has  ever  been  alleged," 
and  disregards  the  most  recent  and  ablest  presentations  of 
the  opposing  case. 

As  the  matter  is  vital,  and  Principal  Drummond's  book  is 
expressly  put  forward  as  an  example  of  judicial  impartiality, 
at  once  refuting  and  putting  to  shame  the  superficial  and 

1  See  "Drummond  on  the  Fourth  Gospel,"  Hibbert  Journal,  Vol.  II 
(1903-04),  p.  615. 


THE  MODERN  QUESTION  37 

biased  judgments  of  the  opposing  school,  it  becomes  im- 
})erative  that  the  dissent  \vc  have  just  expressed  from  Pro- 
fessor Sanday's  la\ish  praise  be  supported  by  direct  citation 
of  fact.  We  may  use  for  this  purpose  the  very  passage  of 
Drummond's  book  which  Professor  Sanday  twice  adduces 
as  "perhaps  the  most  important  and  the  most  far-reaching  of 
all  the  corrections  of  current  ])ractice."  ^  It  represents  the 
nearest  approach  the  book  affords  to  direct  treatment  of  the 
modern  form  of  the  question. 

"But  why,  then,  it  may  be  asked,  has  Justin  not  quoted  the 
Fourth  Gospel  at  least  as  often  as  the  other  three  ?  I  cannot  tell, 
any  more  than  I  can  tell  why  he  has  never  named  the  supposed 
authors  of  his  Memoirs,  or  has  mentioned  only  one  of  the  parables, 
or  made  no  reference  to  the  Apostle  Paul,  or  nowhere  quoted  the 
apocalypse,  though  he  believed  it  to  be  an  apostolic  and  propheti- 
cal work.  His  silence  may  be  due  to  pure  accident,  or  the  book 
may  have  seemed  less  adapted  to  his  apologetic  purposes;  but 
considering  how  many  things  there  are  about  which  he  is  silent, 
we  cannot  admit  that  the  argumentiim  a  silcntio  possesses  in  this 
case  any  validity."  " 

Passing  over  the  objection  that  it  is  not  the  silence  of 
Justin  alone,  but  of  all  his  predecessors  as  well,  which  is  in 
question,  we  confine  ourselves  to  two  points  of  the  above 
comparison.^  The  reader  is  clearly  intended  to  infer  that 
Justin's  neglect  to  appeal  to  the  Gospel  of  John  is  paralleled 
by  a  failure  (i)  to  "name  the  supposed  authors  of  the  INIem- 
oirs"  and  (2)  to  "quote  from  the  Apocalypse."  From  this 
the  conclusion  would  naturally  be  that  Justin,  in  strange 

1  Criticism,  p.  33.    Cf.  Hibbert  Journal,  Vol.  II,  p.  614. 

2  Sanday,  Criticisvt,  etc.,  p.  33,  quoting  Drummond,  Character,  etc., 
pp.  157  f. 

3  On  the  absence  of  "reference  to"  the  Apostle  Paul  see  below,  p.  93. 
The  careful  reader  will  note  that  the  i(se  of  the  Pauline  Epistles,  of  which 
there  are  a  number  of  instances  in  Justin,  is  not  excluded  by  the  term  "ref- 
erence." Without  very  careful  handling  Principal  Drummond's  argument 
will  break. 


38  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

contrast  to  his  age,  cared  little  for  apostolic  authority,  at 
least  in  relation  to  those  he  was  addressing,  and  in  particular 
might  wholly  neglect  to  avail  himself  of  that  of  the  Apostle 
John,  even  when  it  lay  at  his  command.  What  now  are  the 
real  facts?  (i)  In  Justin's  time,  or  even  earlier,  it  was 
known  that  none  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  in  their  current  form 
could  be  directly  ascribed  to  apostolic  authors.  "Mark" 
and  "Luke"  were  not  names  to  conjure  with;  "Matthew's" 
could  be  applied  only  indirectly  to  the  current  Greek  Gospel. 
In  later  times  church  fathers  torment  the  ancient  tradition 
in  various  ways  to  evade,  or  at  least  to  minimize,  the  un- 
welcome admission.^  Instead  of  being  indifferent  to  the 
apostoHc  authority  of  his  Memoirs,  Justin  adopts  just  that 
form  of  description,  "Memoirs  of  the  apostles,"  "Memoirs 
called  gospels,  which  were  written  by  apostles  and  their  com- 
panions" which  enables  him  to  make  the  maximum  claim 
of  apostolic  authority,  without  directly  doing  violence  to  the 
tradition.  These  Memoirs  he  uses  as  authoritative,  quoting 
and  employing  them,  according  to  Drummond's  own  count, 
some  170  times.^  Is  the  mode  and  measure  of  his  employ- 
ment of  these,  then,  really  parallel  to  his  treatment  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  which  he  has  never  referred  to,  and  from 
which  even  Drummond  can  find  but  three  "apparent  quota- 
tions"? 

(2)  But  we  are  more  particularly  to  infer  from  a  compar- 
ison of  Justin's  treatment  of  the  Apocalypse  with  his  treat- 
ment of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  that  he  did  not  care  to  invoke 
the  authority  of  the  Apostle  John  even  in  defense  of  that 
doctrine  of  the  Logos  and  the  divinity  of  Christ,  which  Drum- 
mond finds  tinctured  throughout  with  "influences"  indic- 
ative of  its  Johannine  origin.  Let  us  see  how  this  second 
analogy  holds. 

1  See,  e.  g.,  the  quotation  below,  p.  84,  from  Tertullian,  adv.  Marcionem. 

2  See  above  p.  23,  note. 


THE  MODERN  QUESTION  39 

First  of  all  wc  are  repeatedly  informed  that  Justin  "has 
nowhere  quoted  the  Apocalypse."  Here,  as  in  the  other  cases, 
the  whole  argument  depends  upon  the  exact  choice  of  terms. 
Drummond  does  not  deny,  he  rather  takes  pains  to  assert, 
that  Justin  employs  Rev.  20-21.  He  does  not  deny  that 
Justin  appeals  to  it  by  name  sls  "a  revelation."  He  admits 
that  he  refers  to  it  as  authoritative  and  names  its  author.  It  is 
the  "prophecy"  of  "one  of  ourselves,  John,  an  apostle  of 
Christ."  ^  But  all  this  in  the  case  of  Revelation  is  not  suffi- 
cient to  meet  the  high  requirements  of  the  term  "quotation." 
That  term  Principal  Drummond  reserves  for  three  corre- 
spondences with  the  Fourth  Gospel,  one  of  which  as  an  ad- 
mitted "echo"  we  have  already  discussed. ^  It  is  the  reference 
to  baptism  as  typifying  "  regeneration,"  for  Christ  also  said, 
"  Unless  ye  be  regenerated  (avayewrjdrjre)  ye  shall  not  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  There  is  here  no  mention  of 
John,  no  appeal  to  his  authority,  no  reference  to  so  much  as 
the  existence  of  a  writing.  Some  even  remain  doubtful 
whether  in  the  passage  Justin  was  influenced  at  all  by  this 
Gospel.'  Such,  however,  is  the  first  of  Drummond's  three 
"quotations";  for  we  must  remember  that  they  are  expressly 
distinguished  as  such  from  the  mere  alleged  resemblances. 

The  second  "quotation"  is  not  even  a  probable  echo. 
It  is  only  a  possible  influence.  In  his  Dialogue  (ch.  Ixxxviii) 
Justin  refers  to  the  Baptist's  testimony  to  Christ,  using  the 
Synoptic  form,  but  with  the  peculiarity  of  employing  the  first 
person : 

"Even  he  himself  cried,  I  am  not  the  Christ,  but  a  voice  crying; 
for  there  shall  come  he  who  is  stronger  than  I,  whose  sandals  I 
am  not  worthy  to  take  oflf." 

1  Dial.  Ixxxi.  See  Drummond's  elaboration  of  the  two  supposed  analogies 
of  neglect  on  p.  159. 

2  Above,  p.  32. 

3  So  Boussct,  whose  work,  however,  is  not  referred  to  by  Drummond. 


40  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

This  might  be  due  to  unconscious  reminiscence  of  Jn.  i :  20, 
23;  but,  as  Edwin  Abbott  had  already  pointed  out  in  the 
very  article  referred  to  by  Drummond  a  few  pages  before/ 
it  may  equally  well  be  due  to  the  influence  of  Acts  13:25: 

"And  as  John  was  fulfilling  his  course  he  said,  What  suppose  ye 
that  I  am?  I  am  not  he,  but  there  cometh  one  after  me,  the  shoes 
of  whose  feet  I  am  not  worthy  to  unloose." 

Nevertheless  to  Drummond  this  is  still  a  "quotation"  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel,  by  the  author  who  "has  nowhere  quoted 
the  Apocalypse." 

The  third  "quotation"  is  the  furthest  of  all  from  deserv- 
ing the  name.  Several  pages  ^  are  occupied  with  an  elab- 
orate effort  to  insert  a  Johannine  foundation  under  Justin's 
language.  In  his  First  Apology  Justin  maintains  that  there 
was  a  fulfilment  of  Is.  58:  2,  "they  now  ask  of  me  judgment" 
in  the  fact  that  the  Jews  "in  mockery  set  him  (Jesus)  upon 
the  judgment  seat  and  said,  Judge  us."  Such  an  incident  is 
related  nowhere  in  any  of  our  four  Gospels.  But  in  a  frag- 
ment found  in  1892  of  the  Ev.  Petri,  which  in  the  same 
manner  as  Luke  transfers  the  story  of  the  mockery  of  Jesus 
to  the  account  of  "the  Jews,"  it  is  related  that  "they  arrayed 
him  in  purple,  and  set  him  on  a  throne  of  judgment,  say- 
ing. Judge  justly,  O  King  of  Israel."  Drummond,  however, 
will  not  admit  that  Justin  can  be  referring  to  this,  although 
it  presents  both  points  of  correspondence  with  the  Isaianic 
passage,  viz.,  that  it  is  "the  Jews"  who  are  guilty  of  the 
mockery,  and  that  the  nature  of  it  was  that  they  "asked  of 
him  judgment."  Drummond  still  clings  to  the  contention 
he  had  supported  long  before  the  discovery  of  Ev.  Petri, 
that  Justin's  language  can  only  be  accounted  for  as  a  mis- 
understanding of  the  statement  of  Jn.   19:13  that  ^^ Pilate 

1  The  argument  for  the  "quotation"  occurs  on  p.  149,  the  reference  to 
Encycl.  Bibl.  ii,  1836,  on  p.  130. 

2  Pp.  150-152. 


THE  MODERN    QUESTION  41 

led  Jesus  forth  and  sat  down  on  the  judgment  seat."  He 
gives  instances  to  prove  that  the  word  "sat  down"  (iKudcaev) 
could  be  used  transitively.  Whence  Justin  derived  the 
statement  that  the  Jews  said  "Judge  us"  he  does  not  ex- 
plain. As  regards  this  alleged  "quotation"  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  we  will  simply  refer  to  another  "defender"  whose 
scholarship  is  warmly  and  justly  praised  by  Professor  San- 
day,  but  who,  as  Sanday  seems  to  think,  does  not  rise  quite  to 
Drummond's  level  of  judicial  impartiality  and  lofty  su- 
periority to  dogmatic  prepossession.  Stanton's  "defense," 
appearing  but  a  few  weeks  before  Drummond's,  had  given 
the  following  verdict  on  the  alleged  "quotation": 

"  It  has  in  the  past  been  thought  by  some  ^  that  Justin  had  come 
to  imagine  it  through  a  misunderstanding  or  misremembering 
of  Jn.  19:  13.  But  any  appearance  of  probability  which  this 
explanation  may  once  have  had  has  now  been  destroyed  through 
our  finding  it  again  in  'Peter.'  "  ^ 

Whether  we  follow  or  reject  the  acute,  and  to  the  present 
writer  convincing,  argument  of  Stanton  that  the  true  deriva- 
tion of  the  "fulfilment,"  both  in  Ev.  Petri  and  in  Justin,  is 
the  Acts  0}  Pilate,  the  judgment  of  Stanton  on  the  fate  of 
Drummond's  argument  is  manifestly  true.  A  comparison  of 
Drummond's  use  of  the  word  "quotation"  as  applied  to 
Justin's  use  of  the  Gospel  and  Revelation  respectively  will 
enable  the  reader  to  form  his  own  judgment.  With  it  we 
conclude  our  examination  of  the  pattern  paragraph. 

It  is  indeed  important  that  we  distinguish  mere  "echoes" 
and  "influences"  such  as  make  no  reference  to  a  recogniz- 
able document,  and  mention  no  author;  from  "(quotations," 
which  describe  some  recognizable  written  source,  and  ap- 
peal to  the  author  by  name  as  authority.    In  the  former  case 

1  A  footnote  reads,  "First,  it  would  seem,  l)y  Drummond,  Theol.  Rev.  for 
1877,  j>.  23S." 

"^Gospels  as  Historical  Documents,  p.  99. 


42  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

it  is  equally  important  that  we  exercise  the  keenest,  most 
impartial,  most  critical  judgment  as  to  the  mode  and  measure 
of  employment  of  the  source.  Such  impartial  verdicts,  how- 
ever, are  not  illustrated  in  the  statement  that  Justin  "has 
nowhere  quoted  the  Apocalypse,"  but  has  three  apparent 
"quotations"  from  the  Fourth  Gospel.  They  are  not  at- 
tained by  the  mere  "writing  round"  of  arguments  originally 
framed  against  the  Tubingen  School  and  the  author  of 
Supernatural  Religion.  They  are  not  likely  to  be  found  in 
one  who  "endorses  affirmatively  almost  every  item  of  evi- 
dence which  has  ever  been  alleged."  The  real  greatness 
and  splendor  of  scholarship  of  the  venerable  Principal  of 
Manchester  College,  his  critical  insight,  his  judicial  poise, 
have  been  proved  on  many  an  occasion;  proofs  of  them  re- 
main in  many  parts  of  his  really  great  and  scholarly  defense 
of  the  Johannine  Authorship  of  the  Fourth  Gospel;  but 
these  qualities,  or  at  least  all  of  these  qualities,  are  not  con- 
spicuous in  his  treatment  of  the  external  evidence  and  the 
argument  from  silence  as  these  are  presented  in  the  Modern 
Form  of  the  Question. 


CHAPTER  II 


ECHOES   AND   INFLUENCES 


Wc  have  seen  in  our  consideration  of  the  most  highly 
lauded  of  recent  presentations  of  the  external  evidence  in 
favor  of  the  Johannine  authorship  that  a  judgment  on  the 
question  in  its  modern  form  requires  first  of  all  a  separation 
of  evidence  which  only  bears  upon  the  existence  at  an  early 
period  of  "a  compact  body  of  teaching  like  that  which  we 
find  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,"  which  at  best  can  be  no  more 
than  "a  considerable  step  towards  the  beUef  that  the  Gospel 
existed  in  writing,"  from  evidence  bearing  on  the  question 
of  authorship.  In  the  nature  of  the  case  evidence  bearing 
on  the  authorship  must  be  found  mainly  within  the  compass 
of  the  Gospel  itself.  External  evidence,  however,  will  have 
something  to  say  on  this  point  also.  If  on  the  one  hand,  the 
employments  of  the  Gospel  in  the  region  and  period  of  its 
origin  are  such  in  mode  and  measure  as  the  claims  made  in 
its  behalf  would  lead  us  to  expect,  this  may  to  an  extent  make 
good  the  admitted  lack  of  explicit  appeal  to  "John"  as  an 
evangehc  authority.  If,  per  contra,  there  is  a  noteworthy 
silence  where  employment  was  most  to  be  expected,  and  that 
not  in  one  church  father,  but  in  a  considerable  group;  if  in 
addition  this  silence  extends  not  only  to  the  Gospel,  but  to 
the  very  presence  of  John  in  Asia,  and  to  the  whole  body  of 
tradition  regarding  the  connection  of  the  Apostle  John  with 
the  anonymous  writings  attributed  to  him;  if  the  earliest 
traces  of  this  tradition  are  found  in  the  period  marked  by 
strenuous  advocacy  on  the  one  side  of  "the  fourfold  gospel" 
and  equally  strenuous  denial,  on   the  other  side  of  "that 

43 


44  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

aspect  v/hich  is  presented  by  John's  Gospel,"  it  being  prin- 
cipally adduced  by  an  ardent  champion  of  the  "fourfold 
gospel,"  who  at  the  same  time  is  anything  but  an  accurate 
scholar — then  the  bearing  of  the  external  evidence  can  cer- 
tainly not  be  considered  altogether  favorable  to  these  claims. 
The  mere  fact  that  it  is  an  argument  from  silence,  subject 
to  the  weakness  of  all  negative  evidence,  is  merely  a  warn- 
ing to  rely  on  internal  evidence  for  its  appropriate  function, 
and  upon  the  external  for  that  which  is  appropriate  to  it. 
Silence  is  all  that  can  be  expected  in  the  case. 

Our  summary  of  the  alleged  "quotations"  from  John  in 
90-155  A.  D.,  will  already  have  justified  in  some  measure  the 
remark  of  Reuss  that  "the  incredible  pains  taken  to  collect 
external  evidences  only  serve  to  show  that  there  really  are 
none  of  the  sort  which  were  really  wanted."  It  is  better, 
however,  that  we  adduce  on  this  matter  of  alleged  "echoes" 
and  "influences"  of  the  "Johannine"  writings,  more  im- 
partial judgments  than  that  of  Drummond,  before  proceed- 
ing to  the  c^uestion  what  may  be  inferred  from  early  state- 
ments and  early  silences  regarding  the  alleged  activity  of  the 
Apostle  John,  in  hterature  or  otherwise,  during  the  period 
in  question. 

Sanday,  as  we  have  seen,^  is  "not  so  sure"  as  Schmiedel 
that  there  is  "no  allusion  to  the  Fourth  Gospel  in  Barnabas 
or  Hermas,  where  it  is  found  {c.  g.)  by  Keim,  or  in  the  Elders 
of  Papias,  where  it  is  found  {e.  g.)  by  Harnack."  As  regards 
Papias  an  "allusion"  or  two  to  the  Fourth  Gospel,  or  to 
some  of  its  traditions  would  certainly  be  anything  but  sur- 
prising. So  meagre  a  use — just  sufficient  to  make  it  certain 
that  besides  the  First  Epistle  he  also,  like  his  contemporary 
Justin,  knew  the  Fourth  Gospel,  and  appealed  to  Revelation 
— if  confirmed,  will  only  increase  the  marvel  of  his  silence 
when  deaUng  in  his  Preface  with  the  relative  reliability  of 

1  Above,  p.  ;^;^. 


ECHOES  AND  INFLUENCES  45 

apostolic  sources  of  authority  for  cvanj^clic  tradition.  This 
question  of  tracHtions  rcganUng  John  in  Asia  must  be  treated 
by  itself,  Papias'  witness  being  by  far  the  most  important 
factor.^  But  we  must  not  neglect  possible  echoes  and  em- 
ployments of  the  debated  writings,  for  if  these  attain  a  suffi- 
cient volume  to  indicate  high  regard  for  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
the  i)henomcnon  of  silence  regarding  its  author  may  be  in 
a  measure  counteracted.  Let  us,  then,  hear  the  testimony  of 
other  impartial  witnesses  regarding  Barnabas  and  Hermas, 
and  investigate  the  nature  of  Papias'  possible  employment  of 
the  Gospel. 

It  is  true  that  the  erratic  and  brilhant  Keim,  as  if  he  would 
accentuate  the  paradox  of  his  early  dating,  writes  as  follows 
regarding  the  injlucncc  of  this  Gospel  upon  Barnabas: 

"  However  clearly  it  may  be  shown  that  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas 
gives  no  narrative,  not  a  single  word  out  of  this  Gospel,'  is  not 
acquainted  with  the  idea  of  the  Logos,  makes  an  independent  use 
of  the  watchword  of  the  water  and  the  blood,  or  of  the  types  of 
Christ  in  the  Old  Testament,  or,  above  all,  of  the  serpent  that 
was  lifted  up  for  believers  in  the  wilderness;  ^  yet  the  inner  sphere 
of  thought  of  this  Epistle  corresponds  with  the  Gospel  in  so  many 
ways,  both  in  general  features  and  details,  that  scientific  criti- 
cism is  compelled  to  infer  a  connection." 

Coimection  there  is,  and  influence  there  is  in  the  "inner 
sphere  of  thought."  But  with  what?— It  would  have  done 
more  credit  to  the  common  sense  of  Keim  to  remember  that 
the  influences  which  he  traces  in  these  vague  generalities 

1  See  Chapter  IV. 

2  As  against  twelve  from  the  Synoptics  in  Chapters  i-xii  alone,  without 
counting  the  copious  use  of  Matthew  in  the  "other  knowledge  and  teaching" 
(the  Two  Ways)  incorporated  in  Chapters  xviii-xxi. 

3  Justin,  who  borrows  this  type  from  Barnabas  along  with  much  more 
from  the  same  context  {Dial,  xc-xcvii)  remains  notably  unaffected  by 
"John's"  use  of  the  same.    See  Abbott,  5.  t'.  "  Gospels,"  Enycl.  Bibl.  II, 

§  I02. 


46  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

are  quite  as  easily  derived  from  the  Pauline  system  by  way 
of  the  Alexandrianism  of  Hebrews,  an  epistle  of  which 
Barnabas  makes  undeniable  use,  as  by  way  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  with  whose  Logos-doctrine,  as  Keim  himself  admits, 
Barnabas  is  "not  acquainted."  ^  As  against  Professor  San- 
day's  uncertainty  as  to  whether  he  may  venture  to  claim  the 
alleged  evidences  in  Barnabas  we  may  set  the  judgment  of 
his  own  Oxford  Committee  already  quoted, ^  confirmed  by 
that  of  Professor  Stanton,^  that  it  "contains  no  distinct 
traces  of  the  two  other  Synoptics  (besides  Matthew)  or  of 
St.  John." 

Keim's  attempt  to  find  a  literary  relation  between  the 
exhortations  of  Hermas  to  "keep  the  commandments  of 
Jesus  "  and  the  neo-legalism  of  I  John  ^  shows  equal  inat- 
tention to  the  distinction  between  commonplaces  of  the  period, 
and  distinctive  features.  Neo-legahsm  is  just  as  common 
among  church  writers  of  this  period  as  antinomianism 
among  heretics.  Now  Hermas  has  direct  literary  connection 
with  the  Epistle  of  James,  in  which  neo-legalism  reaches  its 
climax;  whereas  if  he  coincides  at  any  point  of  his  long  and 
tedious  allegories  with  a  phrase  or  idea  of  John,  it  is  so  utterly 
different  in  form,  context,  and  application,  as  to  make  ac- 
quaintance with  the  Fourth  Gospel  altogether  improbable. 
Again  we  may  set  against  Professor  Sanday's  uncertainty 
the  careful  and  judicial  verdict  of  the  Oxford  Committee,^ 
who  place  all  four  of  the  alleged  resemblances  in  the  category 
of  lowest  probability  (class  d).  The  following  is  their  judg- 
ment of  that  one  of  the  four  which  reaches  the  highest  de- 

1  It  is  one  of  the  defects  of  Keim's  view  that  it  attributes  an  undue  measure 
of  "Alexandrianism"  to  the  Fourth  Gospel.  Paulinism  was  not  confined  to 
Ephesus  for  its  development. 

2  Above,  p.  33. 

3  Gospels  as  Historical  Documents,  p.  t^t,.  < 
*  Op.  cit.,  p.  195. 

5  Op.  cit.,  p.  123. 


ECHOES  AND  INFLUENCES  47 

grec  of  plausibility  [the  gate  (ttvXt))  of  the  tower,  Similitudes 
IX,  xii.  I,  interpreted  as  "the  Son  of  God,"  recalling  "I  am 
the  door  {Ovpa)  of  the  sheep"  in  Jn.  10:7]: 

"  The  figure  of  a  gate  admitting  to  the  tower  which  represents 
the  Church  is  a  natural  one,  and  need  not  be  borrowed.^  Never- 
theless the  passage  has  a  Johannine  coloring;  but  whether  this 
is  sufficient  to  prove  a  literary  connection  may  be  reasonably 
questioned.  Such  sentiments  must  have  spread  among  Christians 
apart  from  direct  Hterary  influence."  " 

Stanton  ^  finds  other  resemblances  in  Hermas  in  addition 
to  the  above  supposed  trace  of  Jn.  14:6,  cjuoting  Mand.  iii,  i, 
as  follows : 

"  Love  truth  and  let  nothing  but  truth  proceed  out  of  thy  mouth, 
that  the  Spirit,  which  God  made  to  dwell  in  this  flesh,  may  be 
found  true  in  the  sight  of  all  men,  and  thus  shall  the  Lord  who 
dwelleth  in  thee  be  glorified  {Soiaad-qa-eTai) ,  for  the  Lord  is  true 
(oAt/^ivo's)  in  every  word,  and  with  him  there  is  no  falsehood." 

Stanton  rests  his  case  on  the  words  he  has  here  itahcized; 
for,  as  he  properly  notes,  the  phrase  "the  Spirit  which  God 
made  to  dwell  in  this  flesh"  is  not  Johannine,  but  from 
Jas.  4:5.  But  these  very  italicized  words  are  used  in  a  sense 
contrary  to  the  Johannine,  since  the  glorification  here  sought 
is  a  glorification,  /.  e.,  praising,  of  God  by  men,  as  in  I  Pt. 
4:11;  Mt.  5:16;  not  as  in  Jn.  17:10  the  raising  of  Jesus  to 
his  heavenly  state.     Similarly  the  word  uXijOlvo^;  is  applied  in 

1  The  allegory  is  the  common  N.  T.  one  of  the  Church  as  "a  building  of 
God."  That  the  building  (in  this  case  a  tower)  should  have  a  gate  [iri/X?;]  is 
certainly  not  surprising;  nor,  in  view  of  Mt.  7:13,  14,  need  it  be  surprising 
that  a  Roman  Christian  of  140  A.  D.  should  thus  allegorize  "the  Son  of  God." 

2  The  spread  of  this  particular  sentiment:  Christ  the  gate  (ir6\ri),  apart  at 
least  from  the  literary  influence  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  is  proved  by  its  occur- 
rence twice  in  Ilcgesippus  {ap.  Euseb.  H.  E.  II,  xxiii,  8,  12)  in  the  form 
t/s  t}  dvpa  Tov  'Irfdov  and  once  in  Clem.  Horn,  iii,  52  f.  '£71^  iifju.  tj  ttvXtj  ttjs 
fw^j-  Mt.  7 :  13,  14,  seems  to  be  the  common  starting  point  so  far  as  Christian 
literature  is  concerned. 

3  Op.  cit.,  pp.  43,  46  f. 


48  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Hermas  to  truth  speaking,  and  not,  as  in  Jn.  7 128;  I  Jn.  5 :2o; 
2:27,  to  action  and  being.^  The  expressions,  "the  witness 
which  he  witnessed"  and  "the  law  which  he  received  from 
his  Father"  in  Sim.  v.  have  equally  little  of  the  Johannine 
character.  "The  law"  which  the  Son  received  has  precisely 
the  character  of  the  neo-legahsm  of  Matthew  and  James  ^ 
in  contrast  with  the  Johannine.  In  Jn.  15:12  we  have  still 
the  Pauline  sense  of  "the  law  of  Christ";  the  new  command- 
ment is  love.  In  the  very  same  context  of  Hermas  {Sim,  v.  5) 
it  is  defined  to  be  "the  commandments  {ivToXaC)  which  he 
(God)  gave  to  his  people  through  his  Son,"  and  the  special 
application,  apropos  of  which  the  whole  allegory  is  given,  is 
the  law  of  pasting,  together  with  the  merit  or  reward  to  be 
gained  by  doing  more  than  the  written  requirement.  The 
"witness"  witnessed  by  God  to  the  Servant,  as  we  shall  see, 
is  a  phrase  from  Hebrews,  not  from  the  Fourth  Gospel.  No 
distinctive  character  whatever  can  be  claimed  for  the  remain- 
ing two  phrases  from  Sim.  ix,  "The  seal  is  the  water  (of 
baptism).  .  .  .  To  them,  therefore,  was  this  seal 
preached,  and  they  used  it,  in  order  that  they  might  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  God."  ^  Indeed,  Stanton  himself  seems 
to  rest  very  little  weight  upon  these  alleged  resemblances, 
which  are  similarly  treated  by  the  committee.  That  which 
he  alone  deems  worthy  of  separate  consideration  is  the  phrase 
concerning  the  Servant  [explained  by  Hermas  himself  to  be 
the  (angelic?)  being  who  assumed  flesh,  and  because  of  his 
earthly  service  was  thereafter  exalted  to  partnership  with 
"the  preexistent  Spirit  which  created  the  whole  creation"]. 

1  The  Johannine  passages  compared  are  those  adduced  by  Stanton. 

2  Cf.  Mt.  28:20;  Jas.  1:25;  2:8. 

3  Baptism  (of  the  spirit)  is  referred  to  as  the  "seal"  in  Eph.  1:13,  and  often 
thereafter.  In  the  phrase  from  Hermas  we  are  supposed  to  be  reminded  of 
Jn.  3:5.  But  what  other  phrase  than  "enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God" 
could  Hermas  be  expected  to  use?  Cf.  Mk.  9:  47;  10:23-25,  etc.  .Baptism 
is  the  token  of  admission  in  Mt.  28:19;  ^^-  16;  16  and  universally. 


ECHOES  AND  INFLUENCES  49 

In  the  parabk',  which  is  sim])Iy  an  adaptation  of  the 
Synoptic  parable  of  tlie  Vineyard,'  the  friends  (angels)  re- 
joice at  "the  witness  which  the  Master  (God)  witnessed  to 
him."  This  Stanton  -  designates  "a  characteristic  Johannine 
thought  and  expression,"  comparing  Jn.  5:32.  And  yet 
but  a  page  or  two  further  on  he  notes  with  interest  the 
"signs  of  knowledge  (in  Hermas)  of  the  Epistle  to  the  He- 
brews," which  "taken  with  that  of  Clement  of  Rome,  shows 
that  it  must  have  been  early  held  in  high  esteem  in  the 
Church  of  Rome."  Had  the  thought  and  expression  been 
called  characteristic  of  Hebrews,  or  even  of  Clement  of 
Rome  in  an  adoptive  sense,  the  remark  would  have  been 
just;  for  it  is  by  this  phrase  "God  bearing  witness  to  him" 
that  Hebrews  constantly  [7:8;  10:15;  11:2,  4  (twice),  5,  39] 
refers  to  the  fa\orable  verdict  of  Scripture,  and  Clement  of 
Rome  follows  suit  (xvii,  i,  2;  xviii,  i;  xix,  i,  etc.).  "Wit- 
ness" is  indeed  a  favorite  term  of  the  Johannine  writings; 
but  the  sense  in  which  it  is  applied  to  Christ  in  Jn.  5:37  is 
that  of  Old  Testament  prediction,  not  of  favorable  verdict. 
Of  tlie  four  resemblances  adduced  from  Hermas  by  the 
Oxford  Committee  three  are  identical  with  the  first  of  those 
already  considered  from  Stanton.  The  fourth  is  a  reference 
in  Vis.  II,  ii,  8,  to  those  who  by  "denying  their  Lord  are 
rejected  from  their  Hfe."  This  is  compared  with  Jn.  11:25, 
or  14:  6  "I  am  the  life."    But  the  committee  themselves  say: 

"The  only  connexion  is  in  the  word  ^wt;  ('life'),  and  it  is  by 
no  means  certain  that  it  refers  to  Christ  in  Hermas;  in  any  case 
the  verse  in  Colossians  (Col.  3:4)  is  sufficient  to  show  that  the  ex- 
pression need  not  be  borrowed  from  John.  The  sentiment  of  the 
passage  is  closer  to  the  Synoptics." 

Stanton's  disregard  of  this  bit  of  "evidence"  is  certainly 
justified. 

1  Mt.  21:33  ff.=  Mk.  12:1  fT.  =  Lk.  20:9  ff. 

2  The  commiUee  do  not  refer  to  this  resemblance. 

Fourth  Gospel — 4 


50  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

It  has  not  been  our  object  in  thus  considering  at  length 
the  alleged  traces  of  John  in  Barnabas  and  Hermas,  at  the 
possible  cost  of  wearying  the  reader,  merely  to  justify  the 
statement  that  "the  incredible  pains  taken  to  collect  'evi- 
dences' of  this  kind  only  serve  to  show  that  there  are  none 
of  the  sort  which  were  really  wanted."  We  must  indeed 
anticipate  such  a  result,  at  least  for  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas, 
if  nothing  more  than  the  above  can  be  evoked  from  a  work 
of  its  character  and  dimensions.^  But  we  have  no  mere 
polemic  interest  in  view.  Indeed,  so  far  as  date  is  concerned, 
Hermas  might  perfectly  well  have  known  the  Gospel,  or  at 
least  its  "body  of  teaching."  Our  real  interest  is  to  show 
that  outside  of  "Asia"  even  the  meager  influences  attributed 
to  this  "body  of  teaching"  are  not  really  present.^  In  regard 
to  Clement  of  Rome  (95-125  A.  d.)  and  the  homily  known 
as  Second  Clement  (140  A.  d.  ?)  which  Stanton  thinks  of 
Corinthian  origin,  the  claim  is  not  seriously  advanced. 
Nor  does  it  seem  to  be  in  the  case  of  the  Apology  of  Aristides 
(Athens,  125-126  a.  d.  ?)  from  which  Professor  Stanton  ad- 
duces only  the  general  reference  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Incar- 
nation of  the  Son  of  God  as  supported  by  both  oral  and  writ- 
ten gospel.^  Sanday's  very  dubious  appeal  to  the  Didache, 
or  rather  to  the  liturgy  incorporated  in  the  Didache,  whose 
derivation  is  wholly  unknown,  we  have  already  considered.^ 
Until  recently  much  was  made  of  alleged  employments  in 
the  fragment  of  the  Ev.  Petri,  found  at  Akhmim  in  1892. 
On  this  we  need  only  cite  the  able  and  impartial  judgment 
of  Stanton,^  after  the  most  careful  discussion  yet  given  to  the 

1  The  Shepherd  is  somewhat  longer  than  the  four  longest  Pauline  Epistles. 

2  Cf.  Harnack,  Chronologie,  p.  680,  note  3. 

3  Op.  cit.,  p.  51.    Professor  Stanton  does  not  seem  to  claim  a  reference  to 
the  Fourth  Gospel,  nor  does  such  appear  to  be  present. 

4  Chapter  I,  p.  2,2i-    On  the  Epistle  to  Diognetus  see  ihid. 

5  Gospels,  etc.,  p.  121. 


ECHOES  AND  INFLUENCES  51 

question  of  the  use  of  the  Canonical  Gospels  in  Ev.  Petri, 
and  of  the  latter  by  Justin: 

"The  dependence  of  'Peter'  upon  St.  John  more  particularly 
has  been  rendered  very  doubtful.  We  have  seen  strong  reason  for 
thinking  that  various  points  in  'Peter,'  which  were  supposed  to 
have  been  derived  from  the  latter,  were  in  reality  taken  from  the 
Pilate-document  (the  Acts  oj  Pilate  cited  by  Justin). 

"  It  is,  however,  to  be  added  that  the  question  of  the  relation  of 
'Peter'  to  our  Gospels  has  lost  the  greater  part  of  its  interest. 
Since  Justin  does  not  refer  to  the  work,  the  earliest  trace  of  its 
existence  is  Serapion's  notice  of  it  at  the  end  of  the  century.  It 
may  have  been  composed  circ.  A.  d.  170-80." 

WTiat,  then,  becomes  of  acquaintance  with  the  Fourth 
Gospel  outside  of  "Asia"  in  100  to  150  A.  d.  ?  The  only 
writings  which  might  still  present  an  exception  to  the  rule  of 
silence  are  those  of  the  Gnostic  heresiarchs  to  which  Prin- 
cipal Drummond  has  devoted  some  of  the  most  important 
and  learned  chapters  of  his  book.  These  we  must  consider; 
for  Professor  Sanday,  after  sympathetic  perusal  of  Drum- 
mond's  ardent  advocacy  of  Johannine  quotations  in  BasiHdes 
and  Valentinus  ^  is  led  to  the  confession:  "There  remains  in 
my  own  mind  a  slight  degree  of  probability  that  they  used 
the  Gospel."  -  On  this  measure  of  success  in  converting  a 
devout  believer  Principal  Drummond  should  be  congratu- 
lated.    Others  will  not  go  so  far. 

As  regards  Valentinus,  who  was  at  first  a  disciple  of  Mar- 
cion,  and  flourished  in  Rome  "between  a.  d.  138  and  160"  ^ 
it  would  hardly  affect  the  case  were  Drummond  really  able 
to  make  good  his  contention  that  not  the  later  members  of 
the  school  alone,  Theodotus  in  Antioch,  Ptolemaeus  and 
Heracleon,  contemporaries  of   Irena^us   (186-196  a.  d.)  in 

1  Character  and  Authorship,  Chapters  VIII  and  X. 

2  Criticism,  p.  247. 

3  Drummond,  p.  266. 


52  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Rome,  but  Valentinus  himself  is  also  referred  to  as  using 
the  Fourth  Gospel,^  The  policy  of  Valentinus  in  the  use  of 
evangeHc  writings,  like  that  of  Apelles  his  "fellow-disciple 
of  Marcion  and  fellow-deserter,"  as  TertulHan  calls  him, 
made  radical  departure  from  that  of  Marcion,  who  had  vio- 
lently opposed  the  gospels  employed  by  the  orthodox,  and 
introduced  one  of  his  own  formed  by  mutilation  of  Luke. 
Valentinus  and  Apelles  relied  on  interpretation,  avoiding 
mutilation,  and  winning  converts  from  the  Church  on  the 
basis  of  its  own  canon, ^  Valentinus  himself,  the  founder  of 
the  new  school,  can  hardly  have  departed  from  Marcionism 
much  earlier  than  150-160  a.  d.,  so  that  his  taking  up  the 
Fourth  Gospel — //  ^  ^^ct — belongs  simply  among  the  phe- 
nomena of  rapid  dissemination  after  160  a.  d.  which  we  have 
later  to  consider. 

As  regards  Basilides  the  case  is  different.  This  heresiarch 
is  said  to  have  flourished  in  the  reign  of  Hadrian  (i  17-138 
A.  D.)  and  seems  to  have  established  a  school  in  Alexandria, 
subsequently  led  by  his  son  and  disciple  Isidore.  Harnack 
dates  this  event  about  133  a.  d.  We  may  perhaps  infer  from 
Basilides'  use  of  Aramaic  names  ^  that  he  came  originally, 
like  Cerdo,  the  Gnostic  teacher  of  Marcion,  from  Antioch, 


1  Stanton,  Gospels,  etc.,  pp.  64-69,  will  not  even  go  so  far  as  Sanday  in 
thinking  that  "Drummond  has  made  good  his  position."  He  agrees  with 
Zahn  about  the  "suspiciously  modern  stamp"  affecting  Hippolytus'  extracts, 
giving  "  color  to  the  supposition  that  he  has  a  treatise  by  Isidore  before 
him"  and  feels  that  the  same  doubt  applies  to  the  alleged  references  of 
Valentinus. 

2  Tertullian  contrasts  Valentinus  who  "used  the  whole  instrument  (canon) " 
with  Marcion  the  mutilator.  "Marcion,"  he  says,  "used  the  knife,  Valen- 
tinus the  pen.  Yet  Valentinus  took  away  more  by  his  subtle  addition  of  false 
meanings  than  Marcion  with  his  open  violence."    De  Prcsser.  Her.,  p.  38. 

3  Agrippa  Castor,  an  early  opponent  of  Basilides,  said  that  he  "named  as 
prophets  to  himself  Barcabbas  and  Barcoph,  appointing  also  some  other 
non  existent  persons,"  and  that  he  "assigned  to  them  barbarous  appellations 
to  astonish  those  who  stand  in  awe  of  such  things."    Eusebius,  H.  E.  IV,  vii. 


ECHOES  AND  INFLUENCES  53 

the  home  of  heresy  in  Ignatius'  clay  (110-117).  He  is  classed 
by  Eusebius  with  Saturninus  the  Antiochian  as  a  pupil  of 
JNIenander  the  successor  of  Simon  Magus.  Hippolytus  in  his 
Rcjiitation  oj  all  Heresies  (220  A.  d.)  treats  the  school  as  a 
whole,  and  frequently  employs  the  formula  (f>r]cri  oi  individ- 
ual teachings  which  are  thus  in  some  sense  attributed  to  the 
master,  but  he  alTords  no  proof  that  he  knew  the  Alexandrian 
heresiarch  of  a  century  before  his  time  other^^•ise  than  through 
the  writings  of  others.  Irenams,  who  also  deals  with  the 
school,  though  not  without  occasional  references  in  the  sin- 
gular ^  displays  his  usual  unscholarly  method  and  seems  to 
be  borrowing  his  information  largely  from  the  Syntagma  of 
Justin  Martyr.  It  is  possible  to  infer  with  Drummond  that 
his  source  "may  have  contained  statements  which  were 
avowedly  quoted  from  Basilides."  We  may  say  the  same 
of  Hippolytus,  with  the  difference  that  Hippolytus'  was  a 
scholar,  Irensus  an  unscholarly  plagiarist  and  polemic.  In 
either  case  we  get  very  little  help.  Clement  of  Alexandria, 
however,  displays  direct  knowledge  of  the  founder  of  the 
Alexandrian  heresy  in  the  heresiarch's  own  work;  for  he 
quotes  at  length  from  the  twxnty-third  book  of  Basilides' 
Exegetica,^  and  in  some  instances  expressly  distinguishes  be- 
tween the  teaching  of  the  founder,  and  of  the  later  disciples. 
In  the  absence  of  such  discrimination  on  the  part  of  Hip- 
polytus it  becomes  impossible  to  sejmratc  the  two  instances 
in  which  he  Cjuotes  from  his  unnamed  authority  references  to 
the  Fourth  Gospel  with  employment  of  the  formula  4>r]ai\^ 
from  the  many  which  are  taken  from  Isidore.     Even  the 

1  His  habitual  plurals  are  interrupted  by  two  instances  of  ail.  As  Drum- 
mond shows  (p.  321)  Irenx'us  is  positively  incorrect  in  more  than  one  in- 
stance in  substituting  the  later  teachings  of  the  school  for  the  earlier. 

2  In  the  Stromata,  iv,  81-88. 

3  Drummond  himself  has  shown  (j).  297)  that  the  same  Hippolytus  uses 
this  formula  ^rjtr/,  to  quote  the  general  doctrine  of  the  Naassene  heretics 
without  reference  to  any  individual. 


54  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

much  desired  proof  that  Hippolytus  really  means  Basilides 
as  subject  of  the  verb  "he  says"  would  decide  nothing  until 
we  were  sure  he  had  the  means,  as  well  as  the  intention,  of 
making  the  discrimination.  The  case  becomes  the  more 
hopeless  when  we  observe  that,  as  Drummond  himself  ad- 
mits, in  at  least  one  instance,  and  probably  more,  Hippoly- 
tus has  wrongly  ascribed  to  the  earlier  BasiHdeans  "an 
incongruous  feature  derived  from  his  knowledge  of  the  later 
and  degenerate  school."  ^ 

But  we  must  go  further.  As  Windisch  ^  has  shown,  in 
opposition  to  Zahn,^  the  two  authorities  who  actually  do 
quote  for  us  from  Basilides'  own  work,  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria and  the  Ada  Archelai  et  Manetis,  make  it  highly 
probable  that  Basilides'  gospel  was  not  our  fourth,  but  a 
more  or  less  variant  form  of  Luke.  The  fragment  quoted  by 
the  Acta  from  the  thirteenth  book  of  Basilides'  Exegetica  is 
an  interpretation  of  the  parable  of  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus 
(Lk.  16:19-25),  while  those  cited  by  Clement  from  the 
twenty-third  book  are  concerned  with  the  martyrdom  of 
Jesus  (Lk.  22-23),  treated  from  the  special  point  of  view  of 
Luke,  that  "the  Lord  suffered  according  to  the  will  of  the 
Father"'*  {cj.  Lk.  23:40^;  24:25-27,44-46).  Indeed  it  is 
almost  incredible  that  Basilides,  if  he  really  knew  and  ac- 

ip.  322. 

2  Art.  "Das  Evangelium  des  Basilides"  in  Zts.f.  nil.  Wiss,  VII,  3  (1906), 
pp.  236-246. 

3  Gesch.  d.  ntl.  Kanons,  I,  2,  1889,  pp.  763-784. 

*  These  words  are  quoted  by  Clement  as  the  subject  of  this  twenty-third 
chapter  (as  we  should  call  it)  of  Basilides'  Commentary.  They  remind  us 
strongly  of  I  Pt.  3:17.  The  whole  discussion,  in  fact,  in  all  three  writers, 
Luke,  I  Peter  (c/.  especially  2:20-24;  3:i4~i8;  4:1,  12-19,  etc.)  and  Basil- 
ides, bespeaks  the  period  of  persecution  in  90-117.  Cf.  Rev.  2:13,  14,  20 
(95  A.  D.)  with  the  statement  of  Agrippa  Castor  that  Basilides  "taught 
also  that  the  eating  of  meat  offered  to  idols  and  the  unguarded  renunciation 
of  the  faith  in  times  of  persecution  were  matters  of  indifference."  Eusebius, 
H.  E.  IV,  vii,  7. 


ECHOES  AND  INFLUENCES  55 

coi)tc(l  tlic  Fourth  Gospel,  should  have  laid  himself  open  lo 
the  charge  of  "making  the  devil  divine,  because  he  regarded 
the  suiTerings  of  martyrdom  as  a  punishment  (though  an 
honorable  one)  for  sin  committed  in  a  previous  Hfe."  ^  We 
have  indeed  a  relation  here  between  the  doctrine  of  the 
sinlessncss  of  Jesus  and  the  theory  that  suffering  may  be 
accounted  for  on  purely  monistic  principles  through  metem- 
psychosis, which  can  hardly  be  without  literary  connection 
with  the  Fourth  Gospel,  where  the  same  two  peculiar  ideas 
arc  brought  into  a  similar  relation,  though  with  opposite 
intent.-  Only,  if  a  connection  exists,  it  is  certainly  to  Basili-  y 
dc$  and  not  to  the  Fourth  Gospel  that  priority  must  he  assigned.  ' 
For  the  attitude  of  Basilides  is  well  defined  by  Drummond:  ^ 

"  The  reality  of  Christ's  humanity  and  Passion  is  assumed,  even 
though  it  drives  Basilides  to  a  conclusion  which  he  is  reluctant  to 
admit.  He  thinks  that  all  suffering  is  a  punishment  for  sin,  either 
actual  or  potential,  in  the  person  suffering;  and  when  pressed 
with  the  case  of  'such  a  one'  (6  Seira,  rightly  understood  by 
Clement  to  refer  to  Christ)  that  he  sinned,  since  he  suffered;  he 
would  answer,  he  did  not  sin  but  was  like  the  suffering  infant.  But, 
if  urged,  he  would  say,  that  man,  whosoever  you  may  name,  is 
man,  and  God  is  just."  '^ 

Basilides,  who  would  not  admit  that  the  sufferings  of  the 
martyrs  were  inflicted  on  them  as  the  Church  held,  by  the 

1  Drummond,  p.  324. 

2  Jn.  9:1;  10:21. 

3  P.  312.  Principal  Drummond  is  engaged  in  the  conte.xt  in  proving  the 
untrustworthiness  of  Irenieus,  who  aUributes  to  BasiHdes  the  Docetism  of 
Cerinthus,  and  even  puts  in  his  mouth  a  representation  of  the  passion  drawn 
from  the  Acts  of  John  by  Leucius  Charinus. 

4  Basihdes  took  the  position  of  Heb.  2:9-18  as  regards  the  suffering  of 
Jesus  being  incidental  to  his  humanity;  only  since  he  did  not  supplement  it 
with  the  doctrine  of  the  disciplinary  intention  of  suffering,  borrowed  by 
Heb.  12:3-11  from  the  O.  T.  {cf.  Wisd.  of  Sol.  11:9-26;  II  Mace.  6:12-16) 
his  monistic  doctrine  of  divine  sovereignty  and  penal  significance  of  all  suf- 
fering forced  him  to  the  assumption  in  Jesus'  case  of  prenatal  guilt. 


56  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

malignant  power  of  Satan,  because  he  held  to  one  sole  Su- 
preme Power,  found  but  one  loophole  of  escape  from  the 
inference  that  Jesus'  sufferings  were  then  a  proof  of  sinful- 
ness. This  was  the  precarious  theory  of  prenatal  guilt,  by 
which  he  also  explained  the  suffering  of  new-born  infants. 
Hence  Clement  denounces  him  for  having  dared  to  call  the 
Lord  a  sinful  man  {avdpwirov  dfxapTrjriKov),  and  promises 
in  due  time  to  take  up  Basilidcs'  doctrine  of  the  devil  and  of 
metempsychosis.^ 

How,  then,  is  it  possible  to  imagine  that  Basilides  knew 
and  admitted  as  authoritative  the  Fourth  Gospel,  in  which 
this  whole  ground,  including  the  suffering  of  infants  on  ac- 
count of  parental  guilt,  is  so  completely  covered,  and  with 
such  complete  vindication  of  the  sinlessness  of  Jesus?  We 
have  in  fact  not  only  the  incident  of  the  man  born  blind, 
beginning,  "Rabbi,  who  did  sin,  this  man  or  his  parents, 
that  he  was  born  blind"  and  ending  with  the  controversy 
with  the  scribes  whether  Jesus  was  "a  sinner,"  or  no;  we 
have  reiterated  efforts  throughout  the  whole  Johannine  story 
of  the  Passion,  to  show  that  Jesus  went  voluntarily  to  his 
martyrdom,  and  that  neither  Satan  nor  Pilate  had  any  power 
at  all  over  him  save  as  "given  from  above."  ^ 

With  BasiUdcs  grouped  where  Origcn  has  placed  him, 
among  the  innumcrabilcs  haereses  quae  evangclium  secun- 
dum Lucam  recipiunt,^  vanishes  the  last  trace  of  early  use 

1  Slromata,  iv,  12. 

2  See  Jn.  6:70,  71;  10:11,  17,  18,  39;  11:8,  9,  51,  52;  13:1,  18,  19,  26-31; 
14:30;  17:1,  5  ff.;  18:4-6;  19:11,  etc. 

3  Quoted  by  Windisch,  op.  cit.,  pp.  240-242.  The  real  reason  for  this,  in 
Marcion's  case  as  well  as  the  rest,  will  have  been  not  so  much  the  later  date 
and  greater  availability  of  Luke  as  against  Matthew  and  Mark,  nor  even  its 
supposed  connection  with  Paul,  though  this  may  have  had  weight  with 
Marcion.  Luke,  by  ancient  tradition  (Euseb.,  H.  E.  Ill,  iv,  7),  as  well  as 
by  strong  internal  evidence,  is  the  gospel  of  Antioch.  But  Antioch,  as  we 
have  seen,  was  the  original  seat  of  the  heresiarchs,  Menander,  Cerdo,  Sa- 
turninus,  and  probably  Basilides  as  well. 


ECHOES  AND  INFLUENCES  57 

of  the  Fourth  Gospel  in  the  larger  world  of  Christendom. 
It  is  a  result  of  something  more  than  controversial  interest 
to  observe  that  outside  the  little  group  of  Asiatics,  Ignatius, 
Polycarp,  Papias,  Justin,  even  the  faint  echoes  and  in- 
fluences to-day  rather  hesitatingly  advanced  as  possibly 
showing  acquaintance  with  the  "  instrumentum  Johan- 
ncum,"  ^  prove  on  closer  scrutiny  to  be  altogether  illusory. 
As  regards  the  four,  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  positive 
knowledge  of  acquaintance  with  the  Johannine  Epistles  in 
the  case  of  Polycarp  and  Papias,  and  not  only  cjuotation 
from  the  Apocalypse,  but  explicit  defense  of  its  apostolic 
authority  by  Papias  and  Justin.  Only  Ignatius,  the  vis- 
itor from  Syria,  gives  no  decisive  evidence  of  acciuaintance 
with  any  of  the  five  Johannine  writings,  but  only  of  influence 
from  this  "type  of  teaching,"  while  all  the  group,  if  they 
make  use  at  all  of  the  Gospel,  use  it  so  sparingly,  and  so 
completely  without  acknowledgment,  that  wc  are  compelled 
to  recognize  a  striking  difference  between  their  treatment  of 
it  and  of  Synoptic  material. 

In  scrutinizing  for  ourselves  this  ultimate  problem  of  the 
evidence  from  actual  (not  illusory)  echoes  and  influences  it 
will  be  convenient,  since  we  have  already  sufficiently  discussed 
those  of  Justin,  to  pass  backward  chronologically  and  Asia- 
ward  geographically,  asking  first  of  Papias  (Hierapolis,  145- 
160  A.  D.)  -  then  of  Ignatius  (Antioch-Asia-Rome,  iio- 
117  A.  D.),  then  of  Polycarp  (Smyrna,  110-117  a.  d.)  the 
mode  and  measure  of  their  employment  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 
as  compared  with  Synoptic  tradition. 

Sanday,  we  note,  has  greater  confidence  in  the  evidences 

1  We  borrow  this  convenient  term  from  TertuUian  to  designate  the  corpus 
of  five  writings,  Gospel,  Epistles,  and  Revelation  or  "Pro[)hecy"  attributed 
to  the  Apostle  John. 

2  Lightfoot  {Bihl.  Essays,  p.  64),  "not  before  130  to  140."  The  date 
145-160  A.  D.  is  Ilarnack's.    For  the  reasons  see  below,  p.  120. 


58  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

of  Papias'  employment  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  than  in  other 
alleged  echoes,  and  in  this  judgment  we  willingly  concur. 
The  fact  that  "in  the  preface"  to  his  'E^rjyqaeL'i  Papias  re- 
ferred to  commandments  derived  "from  the  truth  itself"  ^ 
will  not  indeed  bear  much  weight;  nor  is  it  indicative  of  any- 
thing more  than  the  undisputed  provenance  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  that  "Andrew,  Philip,  Thomas"  appear  in  Papias' 
list  of  the  Apostles,  of  whom  only  the  Fourth  Gospel  makes 
individual  mention.  That  such  traditions  were  in  circula- 
tion in  "Asia,"  particularly  regarding  Phihp,  was  known 
independently.'  There  is,  however,  good  reason  to  suppose 
that  Papias  knew  at  least  the  Johannine  Epistles,^  if  not  the 
Gospel;  and  it  is  certain  that  he  knew  and  accepted  the 
Apocalypse  as  a^io7ri(Tr6<i  ("trustworthy").  But  Papias  is 
said  to  afford  evidence  of  "influence"  from  the  Fourth 
Gospel  itself,  if  we  may  take  as  from  him  that  which  Irenasus 
reports'*  as  from  "the  Elders,"  an  expression  under  which 
he  reproduces  traditions  borrowed  from  Papias.^  In  sup- 
port of  their  doctrine  of  a  lower,  middle,  and  upper  place  of 
reward  in  the  Kingdom,  "the  Elders"^  quoted,  he  says, 
as  a  "saying  of  the  Lord,"  "In  the  region  (eV  roU)  of  my 
Father  there  are  many  mansions."    It  is  true  that  the  same 

1  Adduced  by  Lightfoot  {Bibl.  Essays,  p.  68)  in  comparison  with  Jn.  5:33; 
8:32;  14:6.  A  closer  parallel  (especially  if  the  reading  wapayivofj-^voLS  be 
followed)  is  III  Jn.  12. 

2  Zahn's  attempt  (in  his  essay  on  Papias,  Jahrb.f.  deutsche  Theol.,  1866)  to 
"explain  Papias'  remark  as  to  Mark's  want  of  orderly  arrangement,  as 
based  on  a  comparison  with  John,  instead  of  with  Matthew"  cannot  be  dis- 
missed with  Keim  {op.  cit.,  p.  191,  note  i)  as  "truly  laughable,"  since  it  has 
seemed  worthy  of  attention  even  to  H.  J.  Holtzmann.  It  hardly  requires 
refutation,  however. 

3  Eusebius'  testimony  that  he  used  I  Peter  and  I  John  is  undisputed. 
*  Haer.  V,  xxxvi,  i,  2. 

5  On  the  strong  grounds  for  believing  this  an  extract  from  Papias,  see 
Lightfoot,  Bibl.  Essays,  p.  67. 

6  On  the  real  location  of  this  group  of  authoritative  "Elders"  see  Chap- 
ter IV. 


ECHOES  AND  INFLUENCES  59 

"Elders"  quote  other  fragments  of  apoealyptic  writings  as 
"sayings  of  the  Lord"  which  are  certainly  unauthentic,^ 
and  that  this  particular  saying  is  also  found  in  the  pre- 
Christian  apocalypse  of  Slav.  Enoch  (Ixi,  2),  in  a  form  per- 
haps as  near  to  "the  Elders'"  citation  as  Jn.  14:2.^  More- 
over, a  mere  "watchword"  such  as  this  could  readily  appear 
independently  in  the  sayings  of  "the  Elders"  and  the  Fourth 
Gospel.  Indeed  it  is  clear  that  "Ihe  Elders"  quote  only 
oral  tradition,  and  not  even  then  in  just  the  form  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel.  As  regards  iJicir  authority  it  must  be  con- 
ceded to  Abbott  ^  that  the  form  of  reference  shows  that  they 
are  "not  quoting  and  misinterpreting  John,  but  quoting  and 
interpreting  in  accordance  with  (oral)  tradition  a  Logion 
(illustrating  the  Synoptic  Parable  of  the  Sower)  of  which  Jn. 
gives  a  different  version."  Papias,  however,  in  quoting 
"the  Elders"  may  possibly  have  been  influenced  by  Jn.  14:2. 
This,  then,  is  the  measure  of  Papias'  use  of  the  Johannine 
writings.  He  certainly  used  Revelation  and  attributed  it  to 
the  Apostle  John.  The  Epistles  he  probably  echoed.  It  is 
barely  possible  that  he  was  remotely  influenced  by  the  Fourth 
Gospel.  With  the  evidence  from  Papias  we  must  group  the 
earlier  witness  of  Ignatius  and  Polycarp  (110-117  a.  d.) 
presenting  as  a  verdict  whose  impartiality  none  will  question 
the  report  of  the  Oxford  Committee: 

"  Ignatius'  use  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  highly  probable,  but 
falls  some  way  short  of  certainty.  The  objections  to  accepting 
it  are  mainly  (i)  our  ignorance  how  far  some  of  the  Logia  (sayings) 
of  Christ  recorded  by  John  may  have  been  current  in  Asia  ISIinor 

1  In  the  interest  of  the  same  chiliastic  doctrine  of  the  Kingdom  they  quoted 
as  a  saying  of  the  Lord  the  Jewish  midrash  on  Gen.  27:28,  found  in  Apoc.  of 
Baruch.  xxix,  5. 

2  Rendered  by  R.  H.  Charles,  "In  the  world  to  come  .  .  .  there  are 
many  mansions  prepared  for  men,  good  for  the  good,  evil  for  the  evil, 
many  without  number." 

3  Encycl.  Bibl.  II,  s.  v.  "Gospels,"  §  94. 


6o  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

before  the  publication  of  the  Gospel.  ...  (2)  The  paucity 
of  phrases  which  recall  the  language  of  the  Gospel,  and  the  absence 
of  direct  appeals  to  it;  phenomena  which  are  certainly  remarkable 
when  we  consider  the  close  resemblance  between  the  theology  of 
Ignatius  and  that  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  It  is  difficult,  for  ex- 
ample, to  think  of  any  reason  why  Ignatius  did  not  quote  Jn.  20 
in  Sniyrn.  iii,  2  (the  passage  where  he  quotes  the  Ev.  Hehr.  (?) 
to  prove  that  '  J  esus  was  in  the  flesh  even  after  his  resurrection ')."  ^ 

As  regards  the  Epistle  of  Polycarp  the  Committee  find 
only  two  possible  echoes.  In  Ep.  Polyc.  v,  2  we  have: 
"even  as  he  promised  us  to  raise  us  from  the  dead";  and  in 
xii,  3:  "that  your  fruit  may  be  manifest  among  all."  Of  the 
former  clause  they  say:  "The  reference  seems  certainly  to  be 
to  a  Johannine  (?)  tradition,  though  it  need  not  necessarily 
be  to  our  Fourth  Gospel."  2  Of  the  latter:  "...  the 
only  point  of  contact  with  John  is  in  the  word  fniclus,  and 
this  might  be  accounted  for,  e.  g.,  by  Gal.  5 :22,  ^  if  so  natural 
an  expression  requires  any  assignable  source."  ^ 

What  inferences  then  may  be  drawn  from  the  mode  and 

1  Compare  this  result  with  Ignatius'  twenty-two  echoes,  references,  or 
quotations  from  the  Synoptic  writings,  and  sixty-one  from  the  Pauline 
Epistles.  Of  I  Corinthians,  for  example,  the  committee  say:  "Ignatius  must 
have  known  this  Epistle  almost  by  heart."  In  addressing  the  Ephesians 
Ignatius  calls  them  "fellow-adepts  in  the  mysteries  with  Paul"  reminding 
them  how  frequently  Paul  "boasts  of  them  in  his  letters."  He  never  men- 
tions John  whether  in  addressing  the  Ephesians,  Polycarp,  or  others.  He 
does,  however,  show  the  influence  of  "a  body  of  teaching  like  that  which  we 
find  in  the  Fourth  Gospel."    On  this  see  below,  p.  64. 

2  The  context  is  dealing  w.'th  Mt.  19:27—20:28,  and  connects  with  it  the 
"faithful  saying"  II  Tim.  2:12  (cf.  I  Jn.  2:25).  It  is  difficult  lo  see  any 
distinctive  remainder  to  justify  the  claim  of  "  Johannine"  influence. 

3  We  may  add,  by  Rom.  6:22,  "your  fruit"  in  combination  with  I  Tim. 
4:15,  as  suggested  by  Abbott,  Encycl.  Bibl.  Vol.  II,  col.  1831. 

*  Stanton  {op.  cit.,  p.  19)  comes  to  a  similar  conclusion  regarding  Ignatius 
and  Polycarp.  Admitting  that  "here  we  may  certainly  expect  to  find  indi- 
cations of  its  use,"  he  adds,  "and  such  do  not  seem  to  me  to  be  altogether 
wanting,  although  they  are  not  so  full  and  clear  as  might  have  been  ex- 
pected." 


ECHOES  AND  INFLUENCES  6i 

measure  of  employment  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  in  100-150 
A.  D.  by  those  who  seem  really  acquainted  with  the  Johanninc 
writings  ? 

We  have  found  it  a  very  singular  fact  that  Justin,  the  advo- 
cate of  the  Ephesian  Logos  doctrine  and  of  a  chiliasm  which 
he  supports  by  the  authority  of  Revelation,  should  make  no 
acknowledged  use,  and  next  to  no  indirect  use,  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel.  It  is  at  least  equally  singular  that  Papias,  who  made 
similar  use  of  Revelation  and  showed  acquaintance  with 
First  John,  should  seem  to  neglect  entirely  the  Fourth  Gos- 
pel, when  treating  of  the  apostolic  sources  of  evangelic  tra- 
dition, and  afford  no  sure  proof  even  of  ac([uaintance  with 
it.  Some  consider  more  surprising  still  the  silence  of  Igna- 
tius, who  writes  seven  letters  to  the  very  persons  but  recently 
bereaved  (according  to  the  "defenders  ")  of  the  presence  and 
leadership  of  the  last  and  greatest  of  the  Apostles,  a  peerless 
champion  of  the  doctrine  Ignatius  himself  defends  against 
the  same  opponents.  But  Ignatius  refers  only  to  Paul,  and 
never  to  John.  Perhaps  the  most  unaccountable  of  all  these 
surprising  instances  of  neglect  is  reached  when  we  read  the 
actual  letter  of  the  man  whom  the  tradition  holds  up  as  its 
one  sure  link  of  connection  with  the  Apostle  John,  Polycarp; 
for  it  was  Polycarp's  supreme  distinction  to  have  been  an  eye- 
and  car-witness,  yes,  an  intimate  disciple,  of  the  intimate  dis- 
ciple of  the  Lord.  Polycarp  never  mentions  John,  though  re- 
j)eatcdly  he  commends  to  his  readers  the  writings  and  authority 
of  Paul;  and  the  extent  of  influence  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  dis- 
covered by  the  Oxford  Committee  in  his  Epistle  is  "the  word 
fructus" — really  connected  more  closely  with  Rom.  6:22. 

Stanton  alone  among  advocates  of  the  traditional  view 
seems  to  appreciate  the  cumulative  force  of  this  array  of 
silent  witnesses,  and  endeavors  to  deal  with  it,  discussing 
first  in  his  chapter  on  "The  Apostolic  Fathers  and  the  Fourth 
Gospel"    (pp.    18-21)    "the   question     .     .     .     whether   in 


62  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

these  writings  there  are  indications  of  the  influence  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel."  ^  We  may  quote  his  summary  regarding 
the  earher  writers: 

"The  case  as  regards  the  evidence  of  acquaintance  with  the 
Gospel  according  to  John  supplied  by  the  Epistles  of  Ignatius  and 
Polycarp  stands  thus.  Taken  by  itself  it  is  inconclusive.  In  the 
former  writer  it  is  somewhat  indeterminate;  his  Johannine  ex- 
pressions ^  might  possibly  have  been  derived  from  the  phrase- 
ology of  a  school.  In  Polycarp  on  the  other  hand  the  evidence 
is  partly  indeterminate,  partly  indirect.  Neither  can  fairly  be 
reckoned  a  witness  adverse  to  the  existence  at  this  time  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  or  the  recognition  of  its  Johannine  authorship, 
and  this  is  in  itself  important.  On  the  contrary,  the  phenomena 
that  we  have  noted  point  to  acquaintance  with  it,  but  we  cannot 
feel  confident  that  they  may  not  be  due  to  some  other  cause,  so 
long  at  least  as  w^e  confine  our  attention  to  the  Sub-apostolic  Age. 
The  decision  between  alternative  explanations  must  come,  if  it 
is  to  come  at  all,  from  the  position  which  the  Gospel  holds  and 
the  strength  of  the  tradition  in  its  favor,  which  we  shall  observe 
later." 

Let  us  distinguish  in  this  summary  that  which  bears  on 
the  existence  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  a  point  not  in  dispute, 
from  that  which  bears  on  the  apostolic  authorship,  a  propo- 
sition which  becomes  harder  to  defend  in  proportion  as  the 
other  point  is  estabUshed.  Professor  Stanton  adduces  just 
one  single  resemblance,  which  to  his  mind  suggests  knowl- 


1  P.  21,  note. 

2  The  two  resemblances  which  Stanton  thinks  alone  worthy  of  considera- 
tion in  Ignatius  are  quoted  on  the  preceding  page  (p.  19).  They  are  ad  Rom. 
vii,  "My  lust  hath  been  crucified,  and  there  is  no  fire  of  material  longing  in 
me,  but  only  water  living  and  speaking  in  me,  saying,  Come  to  the  Father" 
{cf.  Jn.  4:10;  17:6;  14:6);  and  ad  Philad.  vii,  "For  even  though  certain  per- 
sons desired  to  deceive  me  after  the  flesh,  yet  the  spirit  is  not  deceived,  being 
from  God;  for  it  knoweth  whence  it  cometh  and  whither  it  goeth"  {cf.  Jn. 
3:8). 


ECHOES  AND  INFLUENCES  63 

edge  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  in  the  Epistle  of  Polycarp:  ^  "He 
that  raised  him  from  the  dead  will  raise  us  also;  if  we  do  his 
will  and  walk  in  his  commandments,  and  love  the  things 
which  he  loved."  This  from  ad  Philad.  ii,  he  compares  with 
Jn.  7:17  (but  see  also  Mt.  12:50);  and  14:15  (but  see  also 
]Mt.  19:17).  The  passage  as  a  whole  is  a  very  plain  echo  of 
Rom.  8:11,  "If  the  Spirit  of  him  that  raised  up  Jesus  from 
the  dead  dwelleth  in  you,  he  that  raised  up  Christ  Jesus 
from  the  dead  shall  quicken  also  your  mortal  bodies."  Its 
Johannean  (?)  tinge  consists  only  in  a  substitution  of  the 
characteristic  (Mattha^an)  neo-legahsm  of  the  period  for 
the  Pauhne  "If  the  Spirit  dwelleth  in  you";  and  even  in 
support  of  this  Professor  Stanton  cites  principally  from  the 
Epistles  rather  than  from  the  Gospel.  All  his  other  "evi- 
dences" adduced  from  Polycarp,  including  two  passages 
supposed  to  resemble  the  one  just  c^uoted,  are  jrom  the 
Epistles,  and  are  manifestly  irrelevant  in  a  chapter  in  which 

"the  question  considered  is  simply  whether  in  the  language  of 
these  writings  (Clement,  Ignatius,  and  Polycarp)  there  are  in- 
dications of  the  influence  of  the  Fourth  Gospel." 

Why,  then,  are  we  put  off  with  these  irrelevancies,  when 
we  ask  for  evidences  of  the  influence  of  the  Gospel,  insist- 
ing that  they  should  be  apparent  in  two  writers  like  Igna- 
tius and  Polycarp,  who 

"wrote  after  sufBcient  time  had  unquestionably  elapsed  for  them 
to  have  become  acquainted  with  the  work,  if  it  was  by  the  Apos- 
tle John,  .  .  .  the  former  of  them  writing  from,  and  in  most  of 
his  Epistles  addressing  the  Churches  of,  a  region  where  .  .  . 
St.  John  lived  and  exercised  great  influence  during  the  closing 
years  of  his  life,  while  Polycarp  had  been  one  of  his  hearers  "?  ^ 

Is  it  not  manifestly  because  "there  really  are  no  evidences 
of  the  kind  that  are  really  wanted"? 

1  Neglect  of  "the  single  word  fructus"  is  an  evidence  of  his  good  sense. 

2  Op.  cit.,  p.  19. 


64  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

We  entirely  agree  with  Professor  Stanton  that  neither 
Ignatius  nor  Polycarp  "can  fairly  be  reckoned  a  witness  ad- 
verse to  the  existence  ^  at  this  time  of  the  Fourth  Gospel." 
We  go  further.  We  point  to  the  careful  comparison  by 
Von  der  Goltz  of  the  Logos-doctrine  of  Paul,  Ignatius, 
"John,"  and  Justin,'  and  indorse  his  result  that  both  Ig- 
natius and  "John"  stand  as  middle  links  between  Paul  and 
Justin,  testifying  to  the  existence  of  what  Sanday  designates 
"a  compact  body  of  teaching  hke  that  which  we  find  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel."  We  indorse  (for  substance)  his  conclusion 
on  the  question  immediately  before  us  as  to  the  relation  of 
the  two  contemporary  middle  links,  that  it  cannot  be  ac- 
counted for  by  the  use  by  either  of  the  work  of  the  other. 
We  will  not  dispute  the  inference  that  "Ignatius  must  have 
come  under  the  prolonged  influence  of  a  community  itself 
influenced  by  Johannean  thought."  ^  Inasmuch  as  this  is 
conceded  on  both  sides  to  be  so,  is  the  employment  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  (we  defer  the  question  of  appeal  by  name  to  its 
author)  by  Ignatius  and  Polycarp  in  mode  and  measure 
what  we  should  expect  on  the  traditional  theory?  To  this 
question,  the  only  one  really  in  debate,  Professor  Stanton 
gives  a  somewhat  hesitating  answer:  "Neither  (Ignatius  nor 
Polycarp)  can  fairly  be  reckoned  a  witness  adverse  to  .  .  . 
the  recognition  of  its  Johannine  authorship."  But  even  this 
deprecation  of  the  negative  inferences  which  naturally  sug- 
gest themselves,  is  left  utterly  unsupported.  Instead  of 
giving  reasons,  Stanton  reverts  to  "signs  of  its  use"  which  he 
admits  to  be  "less  distinct"  (sic!)  than  of  our  first  Gospel, 
and  refers  the  reader  to  other  indications  of  "the  position 

1  Italics  ours. 

^Ignatius  von  Antiochien  als  Christ  imd  Theologe,  by  Freiherr  von  der 
Goltz  {Texte  u.  Unters.  Bd.  xii). 

3  P.  139.  The  context  is  quoted  by  Sanday,  Criticism,  etc.,  p.  242.  In 
using  the  word  '^Johannean"  Von  der  Goltz  of  course  has  no  thought  of 
connecting  this  type  of  teaching  with  the  son  of  Zebedee. 


ECHOES  AND  INFLUENCES  65 

which  the  (Fourth)  Gospel  holds  and  the  strength  of  the 
tradition  in  its  favor,  which  we  shall  observe  later." 

The  promised  later  consideration  is  given  on  pages  235- 
238,  after  separate  discussion  of  the  neglect  of  Justin  on 
pages  81-91,  and  of  the  absence  of  traces  of  the  tradition 
regarding  the  Apostle  on  pages  1 64-1 71.  Papias  is  con- 
sidered only  under  the  latter  head.  As  we  have  already 
considered  at  some  length  Drummond's  explanation  of  Jus- 
tin's neglect,  we  may  deal  briefly  with  Stanton's,  which  adds 
but  little.  The  two  Apologies  and  the  Dialogue  with  Trypho 
are  indeed  systematically  reviewed  with  this  question  in 
mind;  but  the  conclusion  is  only  that:  "The  scope  of  Justin's 
argument  (in  the  Apologies)  and  his  method  of  conducting 
it  furnish  a  satisfactory  explanation  .  .  .  for  the  meas- 
ure of  vagueness  which  there  is  in  the  indications  of  his  use 
of  the  Synoptics,"  and  the  same  considerations  may  account, 
Professor  Stanton  thinks,  for  the  "somewhat  greater  obscu- 
rity" resting  upon  Justin's  attitude  to  the  Fourth  Gospel.^ 

We  have  found  a  more  adequate  explanation  for  Justin's 
"vagueness"  in  defining  the  nature  of  Synoptic  authority 
in  the  vagueness  of  the  tradition  regarding  their  apostoHc 
authorship.  The  Fourth  Gospel  should  have  supplied  just 
the  definitcness  required.  Besides,  Justin  does  cite  copiously 
from  the  Synoptists  and  appeals  (as  well  as  he  can)  to  their 
apostolic  authority.  Why  not  cite  to  an  at  least  equal  ex- 
tent from  "John"?  Even  when  dweUing  upon  "the  great 
doctrine  of  the  relation  of  the  Son  to  the  Father"  Justin 
employs  only  Alt.  ii:27  =  Lk.  10:22,  and,  correctly  enough, 
employs  it  to  prove  the  Jews'  ignorance  of  the  personal  Logos.^ 

"He  might  have  quoted  a  great  deal  more  to  the  same  effect, 
especially  from  the  Fourth  Gospel,"  says  Professor  Stanton,  "but 
it  does  not  fall  within  his  plan  to  do  so.     .     .     .    The  argu- 

1  Gospels,  etc.,  p.  84. 
^  Apo!.,  I,  Ixiii. 

Fourth  Gospel — 5 


66  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

ment  of  Christ's  witness  to  himself  would  not  have  been  convinc- 
ing to  those  for  whom  Justin  wrote." 

Justin,  it  would  seem,  understood  his  age  far  better  than 
the  fourth  evangelist,  who  changes  the  Synoptic  report  of 
the  teaching  of  Jesus  to  this  very  form  of  self-witness.  And 
yet  the  fourth  evangelist  was  successful. 

In  the  Dialogue  with  Trypho  similar  considerations  are 
held  to  explain  the  neglect.  "The  mere  name  of  John, 
apostle  though  he  w^as,  would  not  carry  weight  with  Jewish 
hearers  and  readers."  (Was  the  Dialogue  really  written  to 
convert  the  Jew^s?)  If  Justin  does  appeal  to  John's  au- 
thority as  author  (better  "5^6"^")  of  the  Apocalypse,  that  is 
an  exception  which  leaves  the  rule  intact.  "In  the  view  of 
Jews  and  heathen  a  vision,  even  though  made  to  a  Christian, 
would  partake  of  the  character  of  inspiration."  Moreover, 
"Justin  and  the  Christians  of  his  age  might,  even  while 
regarding  the  Fourth  Gospel  as  Apostolic,  be  more  familiar 
with  the  others."    Finally: 

"If — as  is  admitted  by  most  critics  at  the  present  day — the 
evidence  shows  at  least  that  he  (Justin)  used  this  Gospel,  he  can 
hardly  have  taken  it  for  anything  else  than  what  it  professes  to  be 
(through  anonymous  guarantors  in  the  Appendix!),  a  faithful 
record  of  the  testimony  of  a  personal  and  singularly  close  follower 
of  Christ  regarding  the  words  and  deeds  of  Christ."  ^ 

Can  these  considerations,  after  what  we  have  seen  to  be 
the  real  situation,  even  if  admitted  at  their  full  value,  be 
really  regarded  as  furnishing  a  "satisfactory"  explanation? 
Could  Justin  really  so  treat  what  would  be  to  him  "a  faith- 
ful record  of  the  testimony  of  a  personal  and  singularly  close 

1  See  for  all  the  extracts  Gospels,  etc.,  pp.  81-91,  on  "Justin's  attitude  to 
the  Gospel  according  to  John."  The  question  of  "The  Apostolic  Fathers 
(Clement,  Ignatius,  and  Polycarp)  and  the  Fourth  Gospel"  is  discussed  on 
pp.  18-21;  but  no  explanation  is  offered  of  a  neglect  at  least  as  conspicuous 
as  Justin's. 


ECHOES  AND  INFLUENCES  67 

follower  of  Christ"  ?  And  if  the  explanations  be  satisfactory 
in  the  case  of  Justin,  will  they  remain  so  when  to  his  neglect 
is  added  that  of  Papias,  of  Ignatius,  of  Polycarp  ?  Who  then 
were  the  loyal  and  discerning  disciples  who  showed  such 
superior  judgment  in  publishing  the  Gospel  as  the  "true 
witness"  of  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved,"  when  men 
like  Polycarp  and  Papias  were  neglectful? — Or  may  it  per- 
haps be  within  the  Hmits  of  possibility  that  the  Fourth  Gospel 
known  to  these  men  and  to  Justin  was  not  yet  furnished 
with  that  high  imprimatur,  which  once  accepted  could  not 
fail  to  procure  for  the  work  it  accompanied  a  commanding 
preeminence  among  the  Gospels?  Professor  Stanton  infers 
from  the  appended  chapter  (Jn.  21)  "that  the  Gospel  ac- 
cording to  St.  John  was  first  given  to  the  Church  after  his 
death  by  companions  and  disciples."  ^  To  what  period, 
then,  is  it  more  reasonable  to  assign  this  attachment  and 
publication?  To  the  period  when  no  one  accords  to  the  Gos- 
pel a  treatment  corresponding  to  this  claim?  Or  to  that  of 
the  formation  of  the  "fourfold  gospel,"  when  on  the  one  side 
are  ranged  its  ardent  advocates,  on  the  other  the  strenuous 
deniers  of  Johannine  authorship? 

We  cannot  believe  that  Professor  Stanton  himself  is  sat- 
isfied with  his  attempts  at  explanation.  In  fact  after  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  silence  of  the  Sub-apostoHc  Age  regarding  the 
person  of  John,'  which  we  must  consider  in  connection  with 
the  tradition  of  the  Apostle's  supposed  residence  in  Asia,  he 
returns  again  to  the  question:  "How  the  silence  of  the  Sub- 
apostolic  Age  (as  to  the  Johannine  writings)  may  possibly 
be  explained."  ^  At  this  point,  then,  we  expect  to  be  favored 
with  that  evidence,  which  if  not  indeed  suflicient  to  bear 
the  whole  weight  of  the  argument,  as  Drummond  considers, 

1  Gospels,  etc.,  p.  19. 

2  Pp.  164-168. 

3  Pp.  235-238. 


68  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

is  at  least  sufficient  "to  render  it  highly  probable  that  the 
correspondences  with  its  thought  and  language  in  the  very 
early  writings  .  .  .  should  be  put  to  the  account  of 
its  use."  ^  Considering  the  importance  of  the  issue  we  feel 
justified  in  making  a  considerable  extract: 

"  In  estimating  the  significance  of  the  early  silence  we  must  re- 
member how  scanty  the  remains  of  the  period  are.  Moreover, 
the  absence  of  any  mention  of  the  Apostle  John  is  very  strange 
only  in  the  Epistles  of  Ignatius,^  and  there  we  are  forced  to  recog- 
nize that  any  inferences  from  it  may  be  precarious,  when  we  notice 
how  limited  and  special  is  the  use  made  even  of  the  name  of  St. 
Paul.     .     .     . 

"  Nevertheless,  it  appears  to  me  difficult  to  avoid  inferring  from 
the  absence  of  allusions  to  the  Apostle  John  in  writings  of  the 
beginning  of  the  second  century,  that  there  was  a  difference — 
which  it  is  a  matter  of  great  interest  to  notice — between  his  repu- 
tation and  influence  then  and  at  the  close  of  the  century.  At  this 
later  time  (i.  e.,  180-200  A.  d.)  men  were  fast  learning,  if  they  had 
not  already  learned,  to  give  him  a  place,  as  we  do  to-day,  among 
the  greatest  Masters  of  the  Christian  Faith,  distinct  from,  but  not 
inferior  to,  that  of  Peter  and  Paul. 

"  This  position  is  accorded  him  mainly  as  the  evangelist  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel.  .  .  .  Unquestionably  peculiar  reverence 
must  have  been  felt  for  the  Apostle  John  if  he  lingered  on  among 
men  as  the  last  surviving  Apostle.  Yet  his  real  influence  may 
have  been  confined  within  a  narrow  circle  of  disciples  who  had 
the  mental  power  and  the  spirituality  to  understand  his  teaching 
in  some  degree.^  To  the  majority  of  Christians  during  his  life- 
time, and  for  the  first  generation  or  two  after  his  death,  his  title 
to  honor  may  have  not  seemed  essentially  different  from  that  of 

1  Stanton,  p.  21. 

2  On  this  point  see  Chapter  IV.  We  should  have  included  also  the  First 
Epistle  of  Peter,  but  Stanton  passes  this  over  without  mention. 

3  Is  Professor  Stanton  really  thinking  of  the  Galilean  fisherman,  or  of  the 
"theologian"  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  when  he  indulges  in  such  conjectures 
as  this  ? 


ECHOES  AND  INFLUENCES  69 

Andrew  or  Philip.  Whether  he  was  in  the  strict  sense  the  author 
of  the  Gospel  ascribed  to  him,  or  it  was  composed  after  his  death 
by  the  aid  of  records  of  what  he  had  said,  or  which  actually  pro- 
ceeded from  his  own  pen,  here  was  a  legacy  of  which  the  value 
could  only  be  appreciated  with  time." 

Instead  of  supporting  the  robust  claims  of  apostolic  au- 
thorship with  which  Professor  Stanton  set  out,  the  external 
evidence  when  finally  reviewed  seems  to  be  rapidly  carrying 
him  toward  the  position  of  his  opponents.  The  final  para- 
graph, which  we  ha^■c  not  space  to  c^uote,  digresses  to  cer- 
tain phenomena  of  the  internal  evidence  which  might  ex- 
plain the  early  belief  as  to  its  authorship  if  "a  disciple  (of 
John),  whose  own  intellectual  characteristics  and  training 
may  have  determined  in  greater  or  less  degree  the  form  of  the 
composition,  ...  set  himself  to  record  therein  what  he 
had  learned  from  the  venerable  Apostle."  It  will  be  interest- 
ing to  observe,  when  Professor  Stanton's  discussion  of  the 
internal  evidence  appears  in  the  promised  second  volume, 
whether  this  theory  of  indirect  apostolic  authorship  is  defi- 
nitely adopted.  We  are  confining  our  own  attention  for  the 
present  to  the  external  evidence,  and  are  interested  to  ob- 
serve that  even  Professor  Stanton's  diligent  search  reveals 
nothing  whatever  in  support  of  his  earlier  statement  that  the 
silence  of  Ignatius  and  Polycarp  could  not  fairly  be  reckoned 
as  witness  adverse  to  the  existence  at  this  time  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  or  the  recognition  0}  Us  Johannine  authorship.  The 
Johannine  "body  of  teaching"  was  in  existence,  teste  Igna- 
tius. The  Johannine  Epistles  were  in  existence,  teste  Poly- 
carp and  Papias.  The  Revelation  was  treated  as  of  apostolic 
Johannine  authority,  teste  Papias  and  Justin.  The  Fourth 
Gospel  may  have  been  known  in  some  form.  It  was  not  ap- 
pealed to,  nor  even  used  like  the  Synoptics. 

We  have  left  to  the  last  a  single  item  of  the  external  evi- 
dence, partly  because  it  has  a  bearing  upon  this  cjuestion  of 


70  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

the  period  to  which  we  should  assign  the  attachment  of  the 
Johannine  epilogue,  partly  because  neglected  by  most  "de- 
fenders." It  is  that  to  which  Professor  Sanday  seems  to  ac- 
cord the  position  of  chief  importance,  as  the  present  writer 
had  previously  done  in  the  second  of  the  articles  to  which 
Professor  Sanday  replies.^  The  echo  found  in  Mk.  16:9  is, 
as  we  then  stated,  "perhaps  the  earliest"  of  all  known  em- 
ployments of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  The  point  of  difference 
between  ourselves  and  Professor  Sanday  lies  in  his  state- 
ment made  "with  confidence"  that 

"  Its  date  is  earlier  than  the  year  140 — whether  we  argue  from 
the  chronology  of  Aristion,  its  presumable  author,  or  from  its 
presence  in  the  archetype  of  almost  all  extant  MSS.,  or  from  the 
traces  of  it  in  writers  so  early  as  lustin  and  Irenaeus."  " 

In  reality  there  is  no  reason  whatever  for  connecting  the 
editorial  appendix  to  Mark  with  Aristion,  whether  the  (prob- 
ably heathen)  writer  of  Pella,  or  any  other.  As  we  have 
elsewhere  shown,^  the  supposed  evidence  to  this  authorship, 
discovered  by  Conybcare  in  his  Armenian  MS.  of  the  Gospels 
from  Edschmiadzin,  is  a  mere  worthless  conjecture  of  the 
Armenian  scribe  John,  in  the  year  989  a.  d.,  resting  on  a 
comparison  of  the  Armenian  version  of  Eusebius  ^  with  a 
misunderstood  passage  from  Moses  of  Chorene,  the  father  of 

1  See  below,  p.  213. 

2  Criticism,  p.  241. 

3  Hastings,  Diet,  of  Christ  and  the  Gospels,  s.  v.  "Aristion  (Aristo)." 

4  This  version  has  the  spelling  "Aristo"  and  the  designation  "presbyter" 
applied  not  to  John  only  but  to  "Aristo"  also,  like  the  gloss  inserted  by  the 
scribe  before  Mk.  16:9.  The  translator  of  Eusebius  seems  to  have  identified 
the  "Aristion"  of  H.  E.  Ill,  xxxix,  4  with  the  historian  "Aristo"  quoted  in 
IV,  xvi,  3.  The  latter  was  probably  a  heathen  writer,  since  neither  Eusebius 
nor  Jerome  includes  him  among  the  Christian  authors  they  undertake  to 
enumerate,  and  may  be  the  same  as  Aristo,  "the  cultured  rhetorician"  of 
Gerasa  known  to  Stephen  of  Byzantium.  He  is  not  at  all  likely  to  have  been 
the  author  of  the  Dialogue  of  Jason  and  Papiscus  a,s  stated  by  Alaximus 
Confessor  (600  a.  d.). 


ECHOES  AND  INFLUENCES  71 

Armenian  history.  On  the  other  hand,  Celsus,  the  oppo- 
nent of  Christianity  in  176-180  a.  d.,  already  uses  Mk.  16:9, 
though  not,  in  our  judgment,  the  Fourth  Gospel.  Both  were 
also  used  by  Tatian  (172  a.  d.),  and  Sanday  may  even  pos- 
sibly be  right  in  claiming  acquaintance  with  the  IVIarkan 
appendix  on  the  part  of  Justin.  He  properly  disregards  the 
flimsy  claim  that  Hermas  shows  acquaintance  with  it  in 
using  the  phrase  "apostles  and  teachers  who  preached  unto 
the  whole  world;"  ^  but  seems  to  consider  Justin's  expres- 
sion, "His  apostles  went  forth  and  preached  everywhere  "  ^ 
a  real  echo  of  Mk.  16:20,  though  the  expression  surely  has 
nothing  distinctive  about  it.  Let  us  date  the  Markan  Ap- 
pendix then  ca.  150  a.  d.  The  one  thing  certain  is  that  it 
represents  a  period  when  the  older  gospels  of  Matthew  and 
Mark  were  being  adapted  to  circulate  side  by  side  with  the 
more  recent  third  (and  fourth?).  Now  Harnack  has  lent  the 
full  weight  of  his  great  authority  ^  to  the  brilliant  attempt  of 
Rohrbach,"*  to  show  that  Asia  was  the  scene  of  that  process 
of  redaction  whence  issued  our  fourfold  gospel.  We  shall 
not  here  advocate  the  claims  of  Rome  as  against  Asia.  Cer- 
tainly Asia  contributed  its  full  share.  But  it  is  hard  to 
reconcile  so  early  a  date  as  120-140  with  the  silence  of  Papias 
regarding  the  two  newer  gospels,  and  the  fact  that  the  use  of 
them,  first  of  Luke,  then  of  John  also,  is  otherwise  traceable 
only  with  Marcion,  Justin,  Tatian,  and  Theophilus  in  140-180 
A.  D.  The  real  course  of  events  would  seem  to  us  to  be  the 
use  first  of  a  twofold  gospel  by  Papias  in  Asia,  then  of  a 
threefold  by  Justin  at  Rome,   ultimately,   after  prolonged 

1  Sim.  IX,  XXV,  I,  2.    Disregarded  also  by  the  Oxford  Committee.     Cf. 
Clem.  R.  ad  Cor,  xLi.  3,  4. 

2  Ap.  I,  xlv,  OZ  airdcrToXoi  dvrov  i^eXOdures  wavraxoO  iKr)pv^av.      Cf.    Mk. 
16:20,  iKCivoi  5i  i^eKOdvres  iKrjpv^av  TravraxoO. 

3  Chronologic,  1897,  pp.  696-700. 

^  Der  Schluss  des   M arkiisevangeliums,  der   Vier-Evangelien-Kanon  und 
die  kleinasiatischen  Presbyter,  Berlin,  1894. 


72  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

struggles  against  the  admission  of  the  Instrumcntum  Johan- 
neum  at  Rome,  the  general  adoption  of  the  fourfold  gospel 
of  our  canon.  We  shall  have  occasion  hereafter  to  ask  just 
what  sort  of  Fourth  Gospel  it  is  to  which  Mk.  16:9-20  bears 
witness.  For  the  present  we  note  only  that  the  summary 
appended  to  Mark  finds  its  true  date  and  significance  in 
connection  with  this  transition,  effected  by  the  Church  about 
150  A.  D.,  from  a  twofold  to  a  threefold,  and  ultimately  a 
fourfold  gospel.  We  note  also  that  the  epilogue  is  based 
almost  exclusively  upon  Luke;  ^  that  its  aim  is  harmonistic; 
and  that  the  Johanninc  influence  is  confined  absolutely  to 
the  single  trait  that  the  appearance  of  Jesus  in  Jerusalem  to 
Mary  IMagdalen  and  the  other  Mary  of  Mt.  28:9,  10,  has 
become  an  appearance  to  Mary  Magdalen  alone.  While  the 
contrary  relation  of  a  dependence  by  the  author  of  Jn.  20  :i- 
18  on  this  adapted  form  of  the  Lukan  tradition  is  not  ex- 
cluded, it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  this  sHght  change  is 
really  due  to  the  Johannine  narrative.  If  so,  we  have  in 
this  harmonistic  adaptation  of  the  Lukan  story  of  the  resur- 
rection, attached  in  most  manuscripts  to  the  mutilated  Mark, 
our  first  sure  employment.  It  coincides  in  its  bearing  with 
all  the  evidence  derivable  from  the  period  of  echoes  and  in- 
fluences. I.  Before  150  a.  d.  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  unknown 
outside  of  proconsular  Asia.  2.  In  Asia  itself  it  is  not  treated 
by  those  most  Ukcly  to  have  known  it  as  a  writing  of  this 
character  by  the  Apostle  John  would  surely  be  treated. 
3.  Its  wider  diffusion  begins  shortly  after  160  A.  D.  from  the 
entourage  of  Justin,  the  Ephcsian  convert  and  promulgator 
of  the  Logos  doctrine,  at  Rome.  4.  This  wider  diffusion  and 
employment  as  apostolic  authority  is  met  at  once,  as  we  shall 
see,  with  vehement  resistance  and  denial  of  the  authenticity 
of  all  the  Johannine  writings  by  eminent  representatives  of 
the  Roman  church. 

1  According  to  Abbott,  Justin's  favorite  gospel. 


CHAPTER  III 

PAPIAS,  EUSEBIUS,  AND  THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  SILENCE  ^ 

In  his  famous  debate  with  Schiirer  on  the  Johannine 
problem, 2  Professor  Sanday  expressed  "surprise  to  see 
Dr.  Schiirer  repeat  an  argument  which  has  been  so  often 
exploded  as  that  about  Papias."  The  explosions  would  seem 
to  have  first  occurred  in  Lightfoot's  able  essays  against  the 
author  of  Supernatural  Religion,  entitled  "The  Silence  of 
Eusebius"  and  "Papias  of  Hierapolis."  ^  In  point  of  fact 
Schiirer,  who  had  fixed  as  the  very  latest  date  to  which  mod- 
ern critics  were  assigning  the  Fourth  Gospel  ■*  130  a.  d.,  and 
who  therefore  could  have  had  no  possible  motive  for  reject- 
ing indications  of  its  employment  by  Papias  in  145-160,  was 
far  from  "repeating  the  argument"  of  the  author  of  Super- 
natural Religion.  As  we  have  seen,  that  author  followed 
the  lead  of  Baur  and  the  extreme  school  of  Tiibingen  critics 
in  denying  the  existence  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  prior  to  160 
A.  D.  It  may  help  us,  however,  to  understand  why  "defend- 
ers" should  be  still  engaged  in  writing  round  thirly-ycar  old 

1  Under  the  title:  "Recent  Aspects  of  the  Johannine  Prol)lem:  I.  External 
Evidence,"  this  chapter  appeared  originally  as  first  of  a  series  of  four  in  the 
Hibhert  Journal,  I,  3  (Jan.,  1903),  II,  2  (Jan.,  1904),  III,  2  (Jan.,  1905), 
VI,  I  (Oct.,  1907).  It  is  here  reproduced  with  slight  abbreviation  and  cor- 
rection. 

2  In  the  Contemporary  Rn.neu.<,  September  and  October,  1891.  Profes- 
sor Sanday's  reply  was  supplemented  later  by  a  series  of  six  articles  in  the 
Expositor,  1891-1892. 

3  Republished  under  the  title  Essays  on  Supernatural  Religion  (2d  ed., 
1893),  Chapters  II  and  V. 

4  Pfleiderer,  however,  adopts  135-140  A.  d.  in  his  Urchristenthum,  1887, 
p.  778. 

73 


74  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

discussions  of  the  external  evidences,  if  we  note  that  even 
Professor  Sanday  understands  Schiirer  to  be  "repeating  the 
argument"  of  Baur.  In  reality  the  silences  of  Eusebius  and 
Papias  are  still  eloquent,  though  interpreted  far  differently 
by  modern  critics  than  by  the  author  of  Supernatural  Re- 
ligion. They  have  to  do  with  the  traditions  of  the  Apostle 
John  as  an  author.  Since  we  have  already  discussed  the 
evidence  from  the  mode  and  measure  of  early  employment 
of  the  Gospel,  we  may  now  reasonably  consider  the  signifi- 
cance of  early  silences  on  this  further  point. 

We  must  not  imagine  any  disposition  on  the  part  of 
Dr.  Sanday  or  his  associates  on  the  conservative  side  to  dis- 
credit the  argument  from  silence,^  nor  to  advance  the  claim, 
as  some  have  done,  on  the  alleged  authority  of  Lightfoot, 
that,  "The  silence  of  Eusebius  and  his  authorities  is  favor- 
able to  the  apostolic  authorship,  as  well  as  their  utterances." 
That  would  come  near  to  eliminating  external  evidence 
altogether.  If  silence  and  utterance  alike  "give  consent," 
then  the  external  evidence  can  prove  anything;  which  is 
about  equivalent  to  saying  it  can  prove  nothing.  Unless 
the  verdict  of  the  external  evidence  is  always  to  be  in  the 
affirmative,  it  must  be  based  on  silence.  We  do  not  expect 
pre-Shaksperian  writers  to  declare,  "The  Shaksperian  plays 
do  not  yet  exist."  We  expect  those  of  Shakspere's  own 
time  and  environment  and  the  period  immediately  follow- 
ing, if  dealing  with  the  drama,  and  profoundly  interested 
to  maintain  the  credit  of  the  author  of  the  plays,  to  show 
directly  or  indirectly  that  they  know  and  value  them.  If 
they  are  not  only  silent  as  to  the  authorship,  but  do  not  even 
show  any  considerable  knowledge  of  the  plays,  it  leads  us  to 
approach  the  internal  evidence  for  the  date  and  authorship 
with  a  degree  of.  scepticism  proportioned  to  the  amount  of 
reason  we  had  for  expecting  utterances.    Even  when  we  meet 

1  See,  however,  Professor  Sanday's  reply  to  this:  Criticism,  etc.,  p.  35. 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  SILENCE  75 

expressions  and  phrases  in  Marlowe  and  llie  pre-Shakspe- 
rian  dramatists  which  remind  us  of  features  of  ])lot  or  char- 
acter in  Hamlet  or  Macbeth  we  are  cautious  in  our  inferences, 
because  we  know  that  Shaksperc  did  not  build  his  plays 
de  novo,  but  recast  existent  plays,  borrowed  plots  and  char- 
acters, and  even  incorporated  whole  scenes.  Those  who 
make  large  claims  in  behalf  of  very  dubious  "Johannine 
echoes"  as  implying  acquaintance  with  our  present  Fourth 
Gospel  are  more  disposed  to  admit  this  principle  in  theory 
than  in  practice.  They  should  also  admit  that  the  emergence, 
ca.  100  A.  D.,  of  a  work,  which,  if  regarded  as  apostoKc 
would  possess  for  Papias  and  Justin  superlative  importance, 
would  be  marked  by  no  mere  ripple  on  the  stream  of  Chris- 
tian tradition  and  doctrine.  What  we  have  a  right  to  expect 
from  the  argument  e  silentio  will  be  apparent  from  a  single 
illustration,  purposely  taken  from  the  very  center  of  our  field 
of  inquiry. 

A  Latin  ar gumentum  ^  prefixed  to  a  Vatican  ninth-century 
MS.  of  the  Vulgate  alleges  that  "one  Papias  by  name,  of 
HierapoUs,  has  related  in  his  exoteric  (a  blunder  for  exe- 
getic),  that  is,  in  his  last  {extremis)  five  books,"  that  "the 
Gospel  of  John  was  published  and  given  out  to  the  churches 
by  John  while  he  yet  remained  in  the  body."  It  goes  on  to 
declare  that  Papias  himself  "wrote  down  the  Gospel  at  the 
dictation  of  John."  Passing  by  the  absurd  anachronism 
which  follows,  about  an  encounter  of  John  with  Marcion, 
let  us  see  what  the  argument  e  silentio  has  to  say  regarding 
this  alleged  utterance  of  Papias,  by  one  who  did  not  even 
know  correctly  the  title  of  his  book.  Lightfoot  -  has  indeed 
committed  even  his  great  authority,  though  hesitatingly,  to 

1  On  this  ar gumenliim ,  and  its  derivation  and  connection,  see  the  interest- 
ing Appendix  ii,  in  Burkitt's  "  T'ii'o  Lectures  on  the  Gospels,"  Macmillan, 
1901. 

2  Essays  on  Super.  Rel.,  p.  214. 


76  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

the  following  as  "the  most  probable  explanation  of  the  whole 
passage."  "We  may  suppose  that  Papias,  having  reported 
some  saying  of  St.  John  on  the  authority  of  the  Elders,  went 
on  somewhat  as  follows;  'And  this  accords  with  what  we  find 
in  his  own  Gospel,  which  he  gave  to  the  churches  when  he 
was  still  in  the  body  (ert  ev  tm  aca/xuTt  Ka6eaT0)T0<i).  .  .  .* 
If  St.  John's  authorship  of  the  Gospel  had  been  mentioned 
in  this  incidental  way,  Eusebius  would  not  have  repeated  it, 
unless  he  departed  from  his  usual  practice.''  Lightfoot  even 
comes  to  the  defense  of  the  statement  regarding  the  dicta- 
tion of  the  Gospel.  "Papias  may  have  quoted  the  Gospel 
delivered  by  John  to  the  churches,  which  they  wrote  down 
{a7reypa(f)ov)  from  his  hps;  and  some  later  writer,  mistaking 
the  ambiguous  aireypacpov,  interpreted  it '/  wrote  down,'  thus 
making  Papias  himself  the  amanuensis.  ,  .  .  Eusebius 
would  be  more  likely  than  not  to  omit  such  a  statement  ij  it 
was  made  thus  casually.'"  Reserving  our  judgment  of  the 
two  very  large  assumptions  here  required  to  be  made  re- 
garding (i)  Papias'  mentioning  a  matter  of  such  paramount 
importance  only  "thus  casually,"  (2)  this  conception  of 
"the  silence  of  Eusebius,"  what  shall  we  say  of  the  silence  of 
IrencEUS,  passionate  advocate  of  the  Johannine  authorship 
against  those  who  were  denying  that  aspect  (speciem)  of  the 
fourfold  gospel?  Irenccus  was  well  acquainted  with  Papias 
through  his  single  quite  modest  little  work,  and  knew  as  well 
as  did  Eusebius  that  he  must  look  in  it,  if  anywhere,  for  the 
evidence  which  would  utterly  silence  his  opponents.  Here 
Lightfoot  is  clearly  minimizing  the  value  of  the  argument 
from  silence.  Is  it  really  possible  to  make  such  suppositions 
regarding  either  Eusebius  or  Irenaeus?  We  will  consider 
the  two  in  order  of  date. 

Almost  certainly  Irenasus  was  not  otherwise  acquainted 
with  Papias  than  through  his  book;  for  in  quoting  from  it  he 
declares,  "These  things  Papias,  who  was  a  hearer  of  John 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  SILENCE  77 

and  a  companion  of  Polycarp,  an  ancient  worthy,  witncsseth 
in  writing  in  the  fourth  of  his  books;  for  there  are  five  books 
composed  by  him."  Eusebius  corrects  the  error  of  Irenacus 
in  representing  Papias  to  have  been,  like  Polycarp,  a  hearer 
of  the  Apostle,  and  shows,  by  citing  the  preface  ^  of  Papias 
himself,  that  this  author,  in  the  "  traditions  of  the  Elder  John" 
(toO  irpea-^vTepov  'Icodvvov  irapahoaeL'i)  which  he  transmits, 
is  not  referring  to  the  Apostle  as  his  authority,  but  to  a  con- 
temporary of  his  own,  a  John  whom  he  distinguishes  from 
the  Apostle  in  words  at  once  so  clear  and  so  famihar  that  to 
cite  them  again  is  almost  superfluous.^  Of  this  error  of 
Irenceus  in  confounding  the  John  of  Papias'  paradoses  with 
the  John  whom  he  believed  to  have  been  associated  with 
his  revered  master  Polycarp,^  an  error  but  partially  corrected 

1  Jerome  {De  Vir.  Illust.,  p.  i8)  also  informs  us  that  the  passage  in  ques- 
tion was  in  the  prejace  of  Papias'  work. 

2  Since,  however,  so  great  a  scholar  as  Zahn  can  still  make  it  appear  to  him- 
self compatible  with  honest  exegesis  to  say  that  Papias  does  not  distinguish 
the  two,  but  means  one  and  the  same  person,  we  subjoin  the  passage  itself, 
with  Eusebius'  comment,  in  the  translation  of  Lightfoot:  "And  again,  on  any 
occasion  when  a  person  came  in  my  way  who  had  been  a  follower  of  the 
Elders,  I  would  inquire  about  the  discourses  of  the  Elders — what  was  said  by 
Andrew,  or  by  Peter,  or  by  Philip,  or  by  Thomas  or  James,  or  by  John  or 
Matthew,  or  any  other  of  the  Lord's  disciples,  and  what  Aristion  and  the 
Elder  John  [the  disciples  of  the  Lord]  say.  For  I  did  not  think  that  I  could 
get  so  much  profit  from  the  contents  of  books  as  from  the  utterances  of  a  living 
and  abiding  voice."  "Here,"  adds  Eusebius,  "it  is  worth  while  to'observe 
that  he  twice  enumerates  the  name  of  John.  The  first  he  mentions  in  con- 
nection with  Peter  and  James  and  Matthew  and  the  rest  of  the  Apostles, 
evidently  meaning  the  Evangelist,  but  the  other  John  he  mentions  after  an 
interval,  and  classes  with  others  outside  the  number  of  the  Apostles,  placing 
Aristion  before  him,  and  he  distinctly  calls  him  an  Elder,"  etc.  We  have 
also  inclosed  in  [  ]  a  clause  wanting  in  some  authorities,  and  both  textually 
and  intrinsically  doubtful.  See  Encycl.  Bibl.  s.  v.  "Gospels,"  col.  1815, 
and  my  article  in  Journ.  Bibl.  Lit.,  1897.    See  also  below,  p.  112. 

3  On  the  correctness  of  Irenacus'  recollection  of  Polycarp's  references  to 
John  as  the  Apostle,  see  Gwatkin  "Irenaeus  on  the  Fourth  Gospel,"  in 
Contemp.  Rev.,  1897,  i,  and  Fisher  {op.  cit.,  pp.  254  ff.)  against  Rcville  {Le 
Qiiatricme  Evangile,  1901),  Harnack  {Chronologic,  1897),  and  M'Giffert 
{.\ post.  Age,  1897).    See  also  below,  p.  254  f. 


78  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

by  Eusebius/  and  the  fruitful  source  of  ages  of  misunder- 
standing, we  shall  have  more  to  say  hereafter.  Suffice  it 
that  Irenaeus,  knowing  him  to  be  a  (later)  contemporary 
and  near  neighbor  of  Polycarp,  assumed  (were  prefaces 
then  read  as  carelessly  as  now  ?)  that  his  irapahoaeiq  'Icodvvov 
were  of  John  the  Apostle  in  Ephesus.  He  pronounces  him 
accordingly  Icodvvov  dKovaTj]<i,  and  the  phrase  thereafter 
constantly  reappears  in  later  references  to  Papias.  In  our 
argumentum  it  becomes,  e.  g.,  discipulus  Johannis  carus. 
But  Irenaeus  literally  "compasses  heaven  and  earth"  to  find 
an  argument  against  those  who  denied  the  apostolic  author- 
ship. Because  there  are  four  winds,  four  elements,  four 
zones  of  the  earth,  four  pillars  of  heaven,  four  cherubim 
sustaining  the  throne  of  God,  the  folly  is  manifest  of  "those 
wretched  men  who  wish  to  set  aside  that  aspect  presented  by 
John's  Gospel."  Is  his  silence  under  these  circumstances 
compatible  with  the  existence  in  Papias  of  a  direct  state- 
ment, however  casual,  that  "John  while  yet  in  the  body 
published  and  gave  out  the  Gospel  to  the  churches,"  Papias 
himself  or  "the  churches"  (!)  having  written  the  Gospel  at 

1  Eusebius  tolerates  so  much  of  the  misunderstanding  of  Irenaeus  as  ac- 
cords with  his  own  pet  theory  of  a  second  John  at  Ephesus,  on  whom  might 
be  fathered  Revelation;  for  this  is  his  individual  improvement  upon  the 
theory  of  Dionysius  of  Alexandria,  who  was  at  a  loss  to  fix  upon  another  John 
for  the  (then)  obnoxious  book.  But  while  Eusebius  eagerly  seizes  on  the  con- 
fusion as  proof  that  Papias  was  indeed  an  dKoi/trrijs  'Iwdwov,  though  not  the 
John  imagined  by  Irenaeus,  he  is  too  candid  a  scholar  not  to  admit  that  there 
was  no  evidence  of  it  in  Papias'  text;  for  after  repeating  Irenaeus'  phrase  as 
applicable  to  the  Presbyter,  he  qualifies  the  statement  by  adding,  "At  all 
events  (yoOj')  he  mentions  them  (Aristion  and  the  Elder  John)  frequently  by 
name,  and  besides  records  their  traditions  in  his  writings."  In  point  of  fact 
the  passage  quoted  clearly  implies  that  neither  one  of  the  two  Johns  was 
accessible  to  Papias.  The  Apostle  had  long  since  been  dead  {elirev);  the 
Presbyter,  though  living,  was  accessible  to  Papias  only  through  report  of 
travelers  who  "came  his  way."  On  the  true  habitat  and  date  of  this  much- 
debated  John,  see  Scholten,  and  Schlatter,  Die  Kirche  Jerusalems,  vom 
Jahre  70  bis  130,  Giitersloh,  1898. 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  SILENCE  79 

the  Apostle's  dictation?  Careless  Irenaeus  doubtless  was  in 
mistaking  Papias'  authority  for  one  much  higher,  but  his 
carelessness  did  not  go  to  this  extent,  nor  tend  in  this  direc- 
tion. 

How,  then,  has  the  course  of  recent  research  and  discovery 
altered  the  nature  of  Lightfoot's  argument  on  "Papias  of 
Hicrapolis,"  and  "The  silence  of  Euscbius"? 

Lightfoot  was  far  more  accurate  than  his  opponent,  more 
accurate  than  many  who  borrow  his  arguments,  when  he 
pointed  out  the  fundamental  distinction  made  by  Eusebius 
between  "disputed"  (avTiXeyo/xeva)  or  "spurious"  (voOa) 
New  Testament  writings,  and  the  "acknowledged"  (o/xoXo- 
yovfieva);  the  four  gospels  belonging,  of  course,  among  the 
latter.  He  also  pointed  out  the  two  passages  in  which  Eu- 
sebius defines  his  twofold  purpose.  This  is  (i)  "to  indicate 
what  church  writers  of  various  periods  have  made  use  of  any 
of  the  disputed  {avTiXeyofxevfov)  books."  These  employ- 
ments (unacknowledged)  are  carefully  identified  and  trust- 
worthy; they  are  termed  by  Lightfoot  "testimonies,"  and 
their  presence  or  absence  is  the  basis  of  Euscbius'  argument 
for  or  against  the  avriXeyofieva.  Of  course  they  arc  not  ex- 
tended to  the  ofjLoXoyovfjLeva,  though  I  Peter  and  I  John, 
fjerhaps  as  standing  on  the  border-line,  are  covered.  In  the 
second  place,  Eusebius  undertook  to  tell  from  these  same 
early  writers  (2)  "what  has  been  said  by  them  concerning 
(a)  the  canonical  and  acknowledged  Scriptures,  and  (b)  any- 
thing that  they  have  said  concerning  those  which  do  not  be- 
long to  this  class."  ^  He  makes  still  clearer  what  he  means 
in  this  second  undertaking  by  reiterating  it  at  the  point  where 
he  is  about  to  give  "the  statements  of  Irenaeus  in  regard  to 
the  divine  Scriptures,"  as  follows: 

"Since  in  the  beginning  of  this  work  we  promised  to  give,  when 
1  Eusebius,  //.  E.,  Ill,  iii. 


? 


8o  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

needful,  the  words  of  the  ancient  presbyters  and  writers  of  the 
Church,  in  which  they  have  declared  those  traditions  which 
came  down  to  them  concerning  the  canonical  books,  and  since 
Irenaeus  was  one  of  them,  we  will  now  give  his  words,  and,  first, 
what  he  says  of  the  sacred  Gospels." 

Thereupon  follows  Irenaeus'  account  of  Matthew  and  Mark, 
which,  although  borrowed  from  Papias,  and  already  once 
given  by  Eusebius  from  Papias  directly,  is  now  repeated,  and 
his  account  of  Luke  and  John.    This  latter  is  simply: 

"  And  Luke,  the  attendant  of  Paul,  recorded  in  a  book  the  gospel 
which  Paul  had  declared.  Afterwards  John,  the  disciple  of  the 
Lord,  who  also  rechned  on  his  bosom,  pubHshed  his  Gospel  while 
staying  at  Ephesus  in  Asia."  ^ 

Here  was  a  definite  and  very  important  fact  regarding 
the  intention  of  Eusebius,  and  so  bearing  directly  upon  the 
question  of  his  "  silence,"  which  ought  never  to  have  been 
disregarded;  and  yet  it  was  by  no  means  fully  appreciated 
even  by  Lightfoot,  who  himself  brought  out  the  phenomena. 
Eusebius  had  anticipated  modern  criticism  in  its  distinction 
between  employments,  whose  only  bearing  could  be  upon 
the  existence  and  currency,  or  acceptance,  of  a  writing;  and 
'^ statements  relating  to"  the  books  received  as  canonical  in 
his  own  time,  particularly  "the  sacred  Gospels."  It  was  a 
definite  and  important  part  of  his  great  historical  enterprise, 
made  practicable  by  his  access  to  the  library  collected  by 
his  predecessors  at  Caesarea,  to  demonstrate  the  apostolic 
derivation  and  authority  of  the  four  received  gospels,  from 
statements  regarding  their  origin  found  in  "ancient  pres- 
byters and  writers  of  the  Church." 

Had  Lightfoot  been  able  to  foresee  the  light  which  the 
closing  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century  would  throw  upon 
the  debates  of  the  second  and  third  regarding  the   trust- 

1  Eusebius,  H.  E.,  V,  viii,  M'Giffert's  trans. 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  SILENCE  8i 

worthiness  and  authority  of  the  gospel  narrative,  he  would 
hardly  have  defined  it  as  the  "main  object"  of  Eusebius  in 
regard  to  the  four  gosj)els  merely  to  "preserve  any  anecdotes 
which  he  may  have  found  illustrating  the  circumstances  un- 
der which  they  were  written."  ^  He  would  have  realized 
that  the  pre-Eusebian  age  was  almost  as  familiar  as  we  with 
the  higher  criticism  in  both  its  forms,  historical  as  well  as 
literary.  He  would  thus  have  appreciated  that  the  "state- 
ments concerning"  the  gospels  in  both  Irena?us  and  Eusebius 
are  only  links  in  a  long  chain  of  prologues,  or  argumenta,  by 
which  writers  of  both  orthodox  and  heretical  circles  endeavored 
to  establish  the  apostoUcity  of  their  traditions  of  the  Lord's 
Hfe  and  teaching.  Of  these  we  have  had  one  example  in  the 
argumcntum  already  cited;  for,  so  far  from  being  a  late  in- 
vention of  the  scribe  himself,  it  bears  not  only  internal  evi- 
dence of  translation  from  an  early  Greek  original,^  but 
Wordsworth  and  White,  by  the  discovery  of  another  version 
of  the  same  in  a  MS.  which  betrays  relations  with  the  Old 
Latin  version,  have  furnished  evidence  which,  in  the  judg- 
ment of  Burkitt,  must  carry  its  origin  back  much  beyond  the 
time  of  Jerome.^  The  famous  Muratorian  Fragment,  which 
Professor  Sanday  now  brings  down  as  late  as  200  a.  d., 
stands  forth  in  its  true  light  as  one  more  Hnk  in  this  chain, 
its  denial  of  any  discrepancy  between  the  Fourth  Gospel 
and  the  rest  being  aimed,  as  Zahn  has  seen,  at  the  same 
Alogi  antagonized  by  Irenicus  and  Epiphanius.  On  the 
heretical  side  stands  another  succession,  into  which  P. 
Corssen  has  opened  the  way  by  his  Monarchianische  Pro- 
logc*  Here  is  a  heretical  account  of  the  origin  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  leading  back  directly  to  the  Gnostic  legends  of  Leu- 

1  Essays  on  Supern.  Rel.,  p.  46. 

2  So  Lightfoot,  op.  cit.,  p   213. 

3  Burkitt,  Two  Lectures  on  the  Gospels,  1901,  p.  90. 
*  Texte  u.  Unters.,  xv,  i. 

Fourth  Gospel — 6 


82  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

cius  Charinus  and  his  Acts  0}  John.  It  is  true  that  the  new 
fragment  of  these  Acts  pubhshed  by  M.  R.  James  in  the 
Cambridge  Texts  and  Studies  (1897),  and  the  complete 
edition  by  Bonnet,^  show  Corssen  to  have  perhaps  inverted 
the  relation  of  Leucius  to  the  Gospel.  The  dependence  may 
be  on  his  side,  if  either.^  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  these 
Gnostic  legends  which  furnish  a  possible  key  to  "Johan- 
nine"  phraseology;  not  only  the  term  Logos,  but  the  desig- 
nation of  John  as  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved."  But 
we  are  now  concerned  merely  with  the  interest  displayed 
among  both  orthodox  and  heretics  in  the  second  century 
(the  Monarchian  prologues  are  earlier  than  TertulHan)  to 
connect  our  Gospel  with  the  x^postle.  If  we  proceed  in  the 
reverse  direction  a  similar  feeling  of  the  need  for  authenti- 
cating the  records  displays  itself  increasingly  as  rivals  mul- 
tiply. The  first  two  gospels  have  no  prologue,  but  the  third 
is  introduced  under  the  patronage  of  Theophilus,  and  with 
assurances  of  the  author's  better  qualification  for  his  task 
than  certain  rivals.  The  Revelation  of  John  has  both  a 
prologue  vouching  for  the  writer,  with  a  blessing  on  the 

1  Acta  Apost.  Apocrypha,  ii,  i,  Lipsiae,  1898. 

2  The  clause  specially  relied  on  by  Professor  James,  vvtrffofiai  Xdyx^-i-^) 
when  read  in  the  context,  is  in  much  closer  relation  to  the  interpolated  read- 
ing of  Mt.  24:49  (BCLLTrj«<  min.  vss.  Chrys.),  which  also  makes  the  lance 
thrust  part  of  the  soldiers'  abuse  before  the  death  of  Christ  {cf.  Clem,  v,  13 n), 
than  to  John.  There  is  therefore  at  least  the  possibility  of  derivation  in  all 
three  cases  from  a  common  source.  Hilgenfeld,  in  a  masterly  discussion  en- 
titled Der  gnostische  nnd  der  Kanonische  Johannes  {Z.f.  wiss.  Theol.,  1900), 
at  least  succeeds  in  showing  that  the  alleged  evidences  for  Leucius'  ac- 
quaintance with  the  Fourth  Gospel  are  inconclusive.  Certainly  the  Gnostic 
writer  relies  on  Synoptic  tradition  for  his  facts,  his  perverted  and  fanciful 
elaboration  standing  for  the  Docetic  application  of  the  Pauline  Christology 
to  this  tradition,  as  the  Fourth  Gospel  stands  for  the  anti-Docetic.  It  must 
he  admitted  that  the  Johannine  writings  presuppose  a  Docetism  of  the 
Leucian  type,  though  probably  an  older  form.  It  cannot  be  said  that  the 
Leucian  writings  necessarily  presuppose  the  Johannine,  least  of  all  as 
apostolic. 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  SILENCE  83 

devout  reader,  and  an  epilogue  pronouncing  a  curse  on 
spurious  matter.  The  same  purpose  of  authentication  of  the 
record  is  subserved  by  the  appendix  to  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
whether  with  Lightfoot  ^  we  limit  the  later  hand  to  verses  24- 
25,  or  with  Zahn  and  the  great  majority  of  critics  consider 
the  whole  chapter  a  later  attachment.  But  the  question  of 
the  Appendix  and  its  relation  on  the  one  side  to  the  Gospel, 
on  the  other  to  the  tradition  as  transmitted  through  church 
fathers  and  argumenta,  is  one  which  must  be  treated  by  itself, 
falling  as  it  does  on  the  border-land  between  external  and 
internal  evidence.  Here  we  have  but  two  things  to  note:  (i) 
Eusebius'  second  principal  object  in  reporting  the  evidence 
derivable  from  the  earlier  writers  on  c|ucstions  relating  to 
the  canon  was  by  no  means  a  mere  antiquarian  interest, 
still  less  an  idle  curiosity.  He  had  the  example  of  two  cen- 
turies of  effort  to  authenticate  the  gospel  record,  and  both 
he  and  his  predecessors  give  evidence  of  having  searched 
their  authorities  with  almost  the  diligence  of  a  modern  critic 
for  anything  that  might  tend  to  prove  its  close  connection 
with  the  apostles.  To  imagine,  therefore,  that  Eusebius 
would  remit  the  search  in  such  a  work  as  Paplas,  still  more 
to  suggest  that  "Eusebius  would  be  more  likely  than  not  to 
omit"  a  statement  of  Papias,  such  as  Lightfoot  assumes,  is 
to  betray  a  conception  of  the  external  evidence  and  what  it 
signifies  impossible  to  impute  in  our  day  to  a  scholar  of 
Lightfoot's  eminence.' 

1  Biblical  Essays,  essay  on  John  21. 

2  Lightfoot's  reply,  when  his  opponent  in  a  subsequent  edition  presented 
the  argument  from  the  silence  of  Eusebius  in  a  form  more  like  the  modern, 
was  singularly  weak.  He  replied  {ibid.,  p.  182),  "If  Papias  had  merely  said 
of  the  fourth  Evangelist  that  'John  the  disciple  of  the  Lord  wished  by  the 
publication  of  the  Gospel  to  root  out  that  error  which  had  been  disseminated 
among  men  by  Cerinthus,  and  long  before  by  those  who  are  called  Nico- 
laitans,'  or  language  to  that  effect,  it  would  be  no  surprise  to  me  if  Eusebius 
did  not  reproduce  it;  because  Irena^us  uses  these  very  words  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  {Her,  III  xi,  i)   and  Eusebius  does  not  allude  to  the  fact."    As  if  it 


84  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

This,  then,  is  the  outcome  of  a  full  generation  of  research 
on  the  point  in  question.  There  have  been  no  stage  denoue- 
ments. No  single  startling  discovery  has  been  made,  prov- 
ing or  disproving  whole  theories  at  a  stroke.  We  have  sim- 
ply come  to  realize  by  gradual  increase  of  know^ledge  that 
criticism  did  not  originate  with  our  age,  and  to  appreciate 
better,  on  a  wider  historical  background,  the  salient  facts 
already  in  our  possession.  In  particular  we  can  evaluate 
more  justly  the  argument  from  silence. 

Modern  discovery  forces  us  to  look  upon  the  silence  of 
both  Irenaeus  and  Eusebius  as  highly  significant.  Irenaeus 
was  fighting  with  every  available  weapon,  but  chiefly  the 
weapon  of  apostolic  tradition  in  Asia,  against  "  those  wretched 
men  who  wish  to  set  aside  that  aspect  (of  the  fourfold  tra- 
dition) which  is  presented  by  John's  Gospel."  Eusebius  was 
engaged  in  vindicating  from  ancient  writers  the  strength  of 
the  claim  which  TertuUian  had  formulated: 

"That  the  Evangelic  Instrument  (the  fourfold  gospel)  has 
apostles  for  its  authors,  on  whom  this  charge  of  publishing  the 
gospel  was  imposed  by  the  Lord  himself;  that  if  it  includes  the 
writing  of  apostolic  men  (Mark,  Luke)  also,  still  they  were  not 
alone,  but  wrote  with  the  help  of  Apostles,  and  after  the  teaching 
of  Apostles."  ^ 

Both  Irenceus  and  Eusebius  had  the  little  five-chaptered 
treatise  of  Papias  open  before  them  and  would  eagerly  search 
every  nook  and  corner  of  the  work  for  any  statement  directly 
connecting  the  Gospel  with  the  Apostle,  in  fact  anything 
oj  the  kind  reported  by  the  argumenta.  Others  will  have 
done  the  same;  for  the  Exegeses  of  Papias  remained  in  cir- 
culation for  centuries.     Evidence  of  acquaintance  with  the 

were  all  one  to  Eusebius  whether  he  found  this  in  Irencpus,  an  anti-Gnostic 
writer  of  180-190  in  Gaul,  or  in  Papias,  the  fountainhead  of  tradition  on  the 
origin  of  the  gospels,  the  friend  of  Polycarp  in  Asia,  and  the  alleged  "hearer 
of  John!" 

1  Adv.  Marc,  iv,  2. 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  SILENCE  85 

Gospel  in  some  form  may  \cry  well  have  been  found.  There 
is  not  the  sUghtest  reason  for  doubting  the  statement  of  Euse- 
bius  that  he  found  evidence  of  acquaintance  with  I  John  and 
I  Peter.  Neither  he  nor  others  can  have  found  any  statement 
regarding  the  Johannine  Authorship. 

It  is  less  easy  to  account  for  Eusebius'  failure  to  explicitly 
acknowledge  the  use  made  by  Papias  of  Revelation.  For 
Eusebius  is  not  lightly  to  be  accused  of  a  supprcssio  vcri. 
Yet  the  testimony  of  two  commentators  on  Revelation  of 
450-500  A.  D.,  Andreas  of  Caesarea  and  Arethas,  the  former 
quoting  a  considerable  passage,  as  he  says,  "word  for  word," 
is  conclusive  on  this  point.  Some  even  infer  from  the  ex- 
pression ro  a^toTTLcnov  ("the  trustworthiness";  Lightfoot, 
"genuineness"),  employed  by  Andreas,  that  Papias,  like  his 
contemporary  Justin,  was  not  content  with  using  Revelation, 
but  signified  his  belief  in  its  more  or  less  direct  relation  to  the 
Apostle.^  Here  the  silence  of  Eusebius  is  expHcable — to  the 
discredit  of  his  impartiahty.  But  the  silence  of  Irenaeus  awif 
Eusebius,  to  say  nothing  of  TertuUian,  Hij^polytus  and  others 
deejily  interested  in  the  controversy,  makes  it  j^ractically  cer- 
tain that  the  data  of  the  argumenta  and  all  their  tribe  are  not 
derived,  and  could  not  be  derived,  from  Papias. 

The  instance  of  the  argumentum  can  to-day  be  cited  only 
as  an  illustration,  because  those  who  deny  the  inference  as 
to  the  silence  of  Papias  no  longer  claim  with  Lightfoot  that 
Papias  said  anything  so  explicit,  but  only  something  0}  I  his 

1  The  silence  of  Eusebius  on  this  point  must  be  subject  to  the  discount  that 
he  was  almost  as  strongly  jjrcjudiced  against  the  apostolic  authorship  of 
Re%'elation  as  he  was  in  favor  of  that  of  the  Gospel.  Hilgenfekl  {Einl.,  p.  6i) 
goes  too  far  in  claiming  that  rds  diroo-roXiKas  diriyqffei^  {H .  E.  Ill,  39,  12) 
refers  specifically  to  Revelation  {cf.  §  11);  but  Rev.  20:3  is  probably  included 
in  Eusebius'  thought.  We  cannot  argue  from  this,  however,  that  he  felt 
that  further  acknowledgment  was  needless;  nor  even  that  he  might  not 
disregard  a  direct  statement  of  Papias.  Still  the  very  loose  expressions  of 
.Andreas  must  be  judged  in  the  light  of  Eusebius'  silence. 


86  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

kind.  That  he  actually  paid  no  attention  whatever  to  the 
Fourth  Gospel  is  an  admission  which  they  probably  feel 
would  be  fatal  to  their  argument.  His  mention  and  use  of 
it  must  be  taken  to  be  just  "casual"  enough  to  make  the 
silence  of  both  Irenaeus  and  Eusebius  seem  reasonable, 
though  both  rest  on  him  for  their  accounts  of  the  first  and 
second  gospels,  and  at  the  same  time  not  so  doubtful  or  so 
casual  as  to  indicate  either  ignorance  or  lack  of  the  respect 
which  could  not  fail  to  attach  to  so  lofty  an  authority. 

Whence,  then,  do  the  statements  emanate  which  attribute 
the  Fourth  Gospel  to  the  son  of  Zebedee  ? 

It  is  a  fact  of  very  direct  bearing  upon  the  question,  and  of 
no  small  interest,  that  a  comparative  study  of  these  state- 
ments, whether  in  the  Fathers  or  in  the  argumenta,  gives  with 
a  high  degree  of  probability  their  real  derivation.  Long 
since  it  was  conjectured  (by  Zahn)  that  the  legendary  ac- 
count given  by  the  Muratorian  Fragment  might  be  derived 
from  the  Leucian  Acts  oj  John,  a  product  of  Gnostic  ro- 
mancing and  allegory  of  160-170  a.  d.  It  was  almost  surely 
a  source,  perhaps  the  source,  as  Corssen,  James,  and  Bonnet 
have  shown,  of  the  heretical  representations.  Orthodox  tra- 
dition, however,  as  embodied  in  the  two  forms  of  the  argu- 
mentum  above  cited,  in  the  Muratorianum,  and  in  the  state- 
ments of  Irenaeus  and  Clement  of  Alexandria,  seems  to 
come  from  a  less  tainted  source.  It  is  probably  connected 
indirectly  with  the  Gnostic  legend  through  an  orthodox  re- 
cast known  by  the  name  of  Prochorus;  but  it  rests  funda- 
mentally and  ultimately  on  the  Appendix  to  the  Gospel 
(Jn.  21).^  In  proof  of  this  it  is  only  needful  to  place  their 
expressions  side  by  side.  The  argumentum  begins,  "The 
Gospel  of  John  was  published  and  given  forth  to  the  churches 
by  John  while  yet  in  the  body."  ^     This  is  to  answer,  of 

1  See  Jiilicher,  Einleitung  (ed.  1902),  p.  320. 

2  For  the  longer  form,  regarded  by  Burkitt  as  the  earher,  and  as  repre- 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  SILENCE  87 

course,  the  objection  that  it  had  apjK'arcd  as  a  posthumous 
work;  for  who  ever  thought  of  declaring  the  work  of  a  given 
author  to  have  been  pubhshed  "while  he  was  still  alive,"  ex- 
cept in  answer  to  such  an  opinion?  But  the  opinion  is 
clearly  suggested  by  the  Appendix,  Jn.  21:23;  ^"i^  the  an- 
swer just  as  clearly  rests  upon  the  following  verse,  probably 
taken  in  comparison  with  the  related  passage  in  19: 35,^  where 
the  present  "he  knoweth"  (olBev)  takes  the  place  of  the  "we 
know"  {oi8a/x€v)  of  21:24.  ^^  other  words,  the  question  of 
the  relation  of  the  Gospel  to  the  Apostle,  as  a  posthumous 
production  or  otherwise,  was  raised  and  debated  175-200 
A.  D.  just  as  it  is  to-day,  and  on  both  sides  appeal  was  taken 
to  the  Appendix  just  as  to-day.  Similarly,  the  Miiratorianiim 
also  makes  the  same  appeal  as  to-day  to  I  Jn.  i :  1-4  in  proof 
of  the  direct  Johannine  Authorship.^  The  only  other  infor- 
mation which  the  tradition  is  able  to  impart  is  something 
held  in  common  by  the  informant  of  Clement,^  by  Irenaeus, 
the  Muratorianum,  the  prologues  and  argumenta,  and  all 
later  reporters,  viz.,  that  the  Gospel  was  written  at  the  close 
of  the  Apostle's  hfe  in  response  to  the  request  of  his  "dis- 
ciples" {^vwpiixoL,  Clem.),  "fellow-apostles  and  bishops" 
(condiscipuli  et  episcopi,  Mur.),  "bishops  of  Asia"  {Pro- 
logiis  Toletaniis  and  Jerome),  and  that  these  became  jointly 
responsible  with  him  in  various  ways  {Muratorianum, 
"recognoscentibus  omnibus")  for  the  contents.  What  have 
we  here  but  variant  interpretations  of  Jn.  21:20-25,  ^^^ 

senting  the  source  of  Jerome's  extract,  De  Viris  III.  ix,  see  Burkitt,  op.  cjt., 
and  Wordsivorth  and  White,  pp.  490,  491.  This  form  has:  "Hoc  igitur 
Evangelium  post  Apocalypsin  scriptum  manifestum  et  datum  est  ecclesiis  in 
Asia,"  etc.     It  should  be  compared  with  Corssen's  Monarchian  prologues. 

1  Jiilicher,  loc.  cit.,  suggests  1:14. 

2  Non  solum  visorem,  sed  et  auditorem,  sed  et  scriptorem  .  .  .  [se] 
profitetur.  Cf.  Jn.  21:24.  We  shall  have  occasion  hereafter  to  discuss  the 
argument  of  Lightfoot,  op.  cit.,  pp.  186-190,  on  the  First  Epistle  as  "a 
commendatory  postscript  to  the  Gospel." 

3  Clem.  Alex.  ap.  Eus.,  H.  E.  VI,  xiv. 


88  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

attempts  to  identify  those  who  in  21:24  vouch  for  the  Gospel, 
with  or  without  comparison  with  Papias  ?  Irena^us  identified 
them  with  the  "Elders"  of  Papias,  whom  he  locates  in  Asia, 
as  is  manifest  from  the  passages  quoted  by  Eusebius  from 
his  second  and  third  books. ^  The  Muraiorianum  heightens 
the  inspired  authority  of  the  writing  by  making  its  supple- 
mentary authors  the  apostles  (hence  in  Jerusalem?),  and 
by  appending  a  legend  of  revelation  after  fasting.^  All  forms, 
so  far  as  they  are  not  manifestly  modified  by  heretical  or 
orthodox  legendary  traits  and  by  the  passage  of  Papias 
(Irena^us),  have  complete  explanation  as  simple  inferences 
from  the  same  passages  relied  upon  by  modern  defenders. 
Jn.  21 .  19-25  was  the  great  proof-text  then  as  now.  It  not 
only  furnishes  a  perfectly  adequate  explanation  for  all  that 
the  second  century  could  advance  in  the  way  of  tradition  on 
the  authorship;  its  very  phraseology  (verse  20,  "the  disciple — 
/xa6r]rrj<; — whom  Jesus  loved,  which  also  leaned  back  on  his 
breast  at  the  supper,"  verse  23,  "that  disciple  shoidd  not  die," 
verse  24,  "the  disciple  which  testifieth — fxaprvpcov — these 
things,"  "we  know  that  his  witness  is  true")  echoes  and 
reechoes  along  the  whole  chain  of  transmission. 

We  think  it  must  now  be  apparent  that  a  failure  to  dis- 
tinguish between  (i)  mere  evidence  for  the  existence  of  some- 
thing identifiable  as  "Johannine"   tradition  and  doctrine, 

1  Eusebius,  H.  E.  Ill,  xxiii. 

2  "  John,  one  of  the  disciples,  when  his  fellow-disciples  and  bishops  urged 
him,  said,  Fast  with  me  three  days,  and  whatever  is  revealed  to  each  one,  let 
us  relate  it  to  one  another.  The  same  night  it  was  revealed  to  Andrew,  one 
of  the  Apostles,  that  John  should  write  all  in  his  own  name,  the  rest  indorse." 
There  are  here  elements  of  afhnity  with  the  heretical  argumenta  and  the 
orthodox.  The  dictante  Johanne  recte  of  the  Ar gumentum  of  Thomasius 
seems  also  to  be  connected  with  the  Monarchian  declaration  that  John 
dictated  the  entire  Gospel  not  "at  a  sitting"  but  "standing  erect."  See  also 
the  Prologus  Qiiattuor  Evangelioruni  from  Jerome's  Commentary  on  Matthew 
(Preuschen's  Analecta),  where  the  legend  is  attributed  to  an  ecclesiastica 
historia. 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  SILENCE  89 

and  (2)  evidence  connecting  the  Fourth  Gospel  in  its  present 
form  with  the  son  of  Zebcdee,  denotes  inabihly  to  appreciate 
the  modern  attitude  toward  the  external  evidence  in  general. 

To  be  abreast  of  the  times  in  the  matter  of  external  evi- 
dence to  the  Johannine  writings,  one  must  draw  a  line  at 
about  170  A.  D.,  and  passing  backward  beyond  it,  must  pur- 
sue his  inquiry  along  two  divergent  lines:  (i)  What  difference 
is  there  in  the  use  made  of  material  of  the  Johannine  type  as 
we  recede?  (2)  What  becomes  of  the  tradition  of  John  as 
an  author? 

The  continued  accumulation  of  "Johannine"  echoes  must 
be  expected.  Every  new  find  will  be  greeted  with  as  much 
delight  in  one  camp  as  the  other;  but  it  adds  practically 
nothing  on  the  question  now  in  debate.  To-day  the  argu- 
ment from  silence  is  an  argument  from  the  silence  of  Euse- 
bius,  the  silence  of  Irena^us,  the  silence  of  Justin  Martyr,  the 
silence  of  Polycarp  and  Ignatius,  and,  as  we  now  venture  to 
add,  the  silence  of  Papias.  Where  there  seems  to  be  a  dis- 
position to  pass  over  this  too  easily,  as  if  all  these  champions 
of  the  Church  had  been  indifferent  to  the  great  problem  of 
aiitlienticating  the  records  which  agitated  both  Church  and 
heretical  sects  from  Papias  down,  it  seems  to  argue  a  certain 
unprogressiveness,  a  failure  to  appreciate  the  changed  aspect 
of  the  problem  since  the  theory  of  Baur  and  Volkmar  and 
the  author  of  Supernatural  Religion  was  "exploded." 

So  also  with  the  argument  from  utterance.  To-day  we 
are  not  concerned  with  "testimonies"  later  than  Justin;  nor 
with  earlier  ones,  except  with  relation  to  a  quite  altered 
problem.  Testimonies  to  the  existence  of  the  type  of  evan- 
gelic tradition  or  teaching  known  as  "Johannine"  are  super- 
fluous unless  earlier  than  Justin.  Those  which  arc  of  Justin's 
age  or  earlier  never  connect  this  ty})e  with  John.  Testimonies 
to  the  Johannine  Authorship  to  be  of  value  must  be  independ- 
ent of  the  Appendix. 


90  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

It  must,  then,  be  admitted  that  a  sharp  hne  of  demarca- 
tion is  to  be  drawn  at  the  point  where  Theophilus  of  Antioch 
for  the  first  time  distinctly  declares  this  Gospel  to  be  the 
work  of  "John,  one  of  the  vessels  of  the  Spirit,"  and  almost 
simultaneously  Tatian  introduces  it  to  a  parity  with  the 
Synoptics,  and  Irenaeus  and  Hippolytus  and  the  Muratorian 
fragment  vigorously  defend  it  against  the  Alogi.  These 
appear  to  have  been  orthodox  opponents  of  Montanism,  con- 
servative in  opposition  to  its  excesses,  ultraconservative  (in 
the  view  of  Irenseus  and  his  school)  in  resisting  the  doctrine 
of  a  fourfold  gospel.  In  denying  the  apostolicity  of  the 
Johannine  writings  they  did  not  deny  their  antiquity,  but 
alleged,  perhaps  because  of  the  favor  the  Gospel  had  begun 
to  enjoy  in  Gnostic  circles,  that  it  was  the  work  of  Cerinthus, 
the  arch-gnostic  of  Asia.^  The  basis  of  their  argument  was 
its  discrepancy  with  the  Synoptics.^  But  the  weak  resistance 
of  the  Alogi  was  speedily  overcome.  As  Professor  Sanday 
has  put  it: 

"Direct  and  express  ascription  to  the  Apostle  begins  with 
Theophilus  of  Antioch  {ca.  i8i  A.  D.).  .  .  .  From  that  time 
it  is  of  course  rapidly  taken  up  in  a  number  of  the  most  diverse 
quarters;  it  has,  perhaps,  already  had  an  elaborate  commentary 

1  This  allegation  has  been  held  up  by  modern  critics  as  evidence  that  the 
Alogi  ("senseless")  deserved  the  epithet  coined  by  Epiphanius,  whose  own 
house,  however,  is  a  genuine  crystal  palace.  In  point  of  fact  the  evidence  is 
quite  the  other  way.  Doubtless  they  were  unpardonably  influenced  by 
dogmatic  prejudice,  but  their  line  of  proof  was  well  chosen  and  consistently 
carried  out;  and,  while  the  selection  of  Cerinthus  as  forger  was  doubtless  a 
mere  dictate  of  hatred,  recent  discovery  has  now  afforded  us  the  proof  that 
the  school  of  Cerinthus  did  engage  in  the  copious  manufacture  of  spurious 
gospels  and  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  in  particular  in  the  production,  still  in  the 
second  century,  not  only  of  the  Acts  of  John  above  referred  to,  but  of  a 
Gnostic  Gospel  of  John  as  well. 

2  Cf.  the  Muratorianum,  Et  ideo  licet  varia  singulis  evangeliorum  libris 
principia  doceantur,  nihil  tamen  differt  credentium  fidei.  See  also  Jerome's 
version  of  the  Prologus  Toletanus  at  the  end.  Quae  res  et  8M(pupLai>  quae 
videtur  Johannis  esse  cum  ceteris  toUit. 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  SILENCE  91 

WTittcn  upon  it  by  the  Gnostic  Heracleon;  ^  it  has  been  used  by  the 
heathen  philosopher  Celsus  (ai.  178);  and  it  has  been  included  in 
the  Diatessaron  of  Tatian  [we  may  now  add  'and  the  Sinaitic 
Syriac  version  of  about  the  same  date'].  We  have  abundant  proof 
that  from  the  last  quarter  of  the  second  century  the  Fourth  Gospel 
is  firmly  rooted  in  every  branch  of  the  Christian  Church,  with 
that  one  excei)tion  [of  the  Alogi]." 

This  is  not  put  too  strongly,  nor  is  it  inadvertently  that 
Professor  Sand  ay  writes  that  from  the  time  of  direct  ascrip- 
tion to  the  Apostle  "0/  course"  it  was  "rapidly  taken  up." 
But  we  have  now  to  pass  behind  the  epoch  of  rapid  dissem- 
ination, and  put  our  double  question,  asking  first,  however, 
since  the  answer  is  relatively  easy.  What  becomes  of  the  tra- 
dition of  John  as  an  author  ?  Unless  we  greatly  mistake  the 
evidence,  all  that  connects  him  with  the  Fourth  Gospel  runs 
rapidly  out  in  mere  legend,  either  born  of  Gnostic  fancy,  or 
educed  from  the  "Johanninc"  waitings  themselves.  The 
Ads  of  John  (160-170  a.  d.)  identify  "the  disciple  whom 
Jesus  loved"  with  the  son  of  Zebedee,  explaining  the  phrase 
by  John's  alleged  celibacy.  Valentinian  Gnostics,  as  less 
bound  by  tradition,  may  well  have  taken  up  the  Fourth 
Gospel  sooner  than  the  orthodox,  though  for  Basilides  and 
Marcion  Luke  was  "the"  gospel.  Corssen  even  thinks  he 
finds  traces  of  opposition  to  it  in  Gnostic  circles,  anticipating 
that  of  the  Alogi.  On  the  orthodox  side  it  is  hard  to  see  how 
the  situation  differs  from  what  we  might  expect  it  to  be  if 
not  one  of  the  church  writers,  from  Clement  of  Rome  to 
Justin  Martyr,  had  ever  heard  of  John  as  an  author,  except 
in  so  far  as  he  is  recognized  as  the  seer  of  Revelation.  The 
solitary  gleam  of  light  that  we  can  obtain  from  their  utterance 
is  the  fact  that  in  his  list  of  the  apostles,  Papias  groups 
John  with  Matthew.  Lightfoot  regarded  this  as  evidence 
that  Papias  considered  him  as  in  some  sense  an  cvangehst. 

1  Disciple  of  Valentinus.    Harnack  dales  his  career  in  145-180  A.  D. 


f 


92  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

We  have  only  to  realize  what  was  the  main  object  of  Papias' 
Expositions  of  the  (principally  Matthsan)  logia,  and  what 
wTiting  principally  determined  his  chihastic  views,  to  see 
that  this  explanation  is  not  required.  In  fact  another  is 
more  probable.  Papias'  "expositions"  w^ere  directed  against 
those  whom  Lightfoot  rightly  identifies  as  the  i^rjjijTai.  kukoI 
r<av  KaXo)<i  elprjfjLevcov.  He  may  even  have  had  the  recently 
published  Exegetica  of  Basilides  in  mind.  In  the  language 
of  his  friend  and  colleague  Polycarp,  they  "perverted  the 
logia  of  the  Lord  .  .  .  denying  that  there  is  either 
resurrection  or  judgment."  Papias  answered  them  by  ap- 
plying Revelation  in  support  of  his  interpretations  of  Matthew 
and  Mark.  In  particular  he  adduced  Rev.  12:9,  probably 
in  explanation  of  Mt.  12:25-29.  We  may  also  infer  with 
great  probabihty  that  it  is  to  Papias  that  Irena^us  refers  as 
the  interpreter  of  Rev,  13:18  {Her.  V,  xxx,  i).  Irenaeus 
certainly  took  from  Papias  his  doctrine  of  a  physical  Para- 
dise, which  Papias  based  on  Mt.  13:8,  23,  interpreted 
through  certain  "unwritten  traditions,"  but  also,  apparently, 
through  Rev.  20:3.  To  seek  a  further  reason  for  Papias' 
grouping  of  Matthew  and  John  is  surely  superfluous.  ]\Iat- 
thew  was  his  authority  for  the  sayings  of  the  Lord,  John — - 
the  John  of  Revelation — for  "the  resurrection  and  judgment." 
For  the  rest,  the  silence  regarding  John  as  an  author  is  simply 
more  marked  the  nearer  we  draw  to  the  time  and  place  of 
origin  of  the  Gospel. 

(2)  But  as  already  noted  we  must  also  ask.  What  of  the 
employments  of  Johannine  evangelic  material  in  the  years 
immediately  preceding  the  vehement  advocacy  of  Irenaeus? 
Why  is  there  so  sudden  and  enormous  a  falling  off  in  the 
amount,  so  little  importance  attached  to  the  minimum  that 
appears,  so  distant  a  resemblance  to  our  text?  Why  does 
the  Fourth  Gospel  sink  at  once  from  the  first  to  the  very 
lowest  rank  as  an  authority?     Wiy  does  Justin  Martyr, 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  SILENCE  93 

eager  as  he  is  in  advocacy  of  a  L(;^(;'(75-doctrinc  dilTicult  to 
distinguish  from  the  Johannine,  never  appeal  to  its  authority, 
though  in  advocacy  of  his  millenarian  doctrine  he  is  glad 
to  quote  Rev.  20:3,  and  to  make  the  most  of  the  tradition 
that  "the  revelation  was  made  to  a  certain  man  with  us  whose 
name  was  John,  one  oj  the  apostles  oj  Christ'^?  ^  Why  do  his 
quotations  from  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  which  he  regards  as 
"memoirs  written  by  Apostles  and  their  followers"-  [/.  c, 
ISIatthew,  Peter,  Paul  (?),  Mark,  and  Luke],  run  up  into 
the  hundreds  and  extend  over  whole  paragraphs;  while  a 
few  lines  will  contain  all  that  shows  even  a  plausible  connec- 
tion with  the  Fourth  Gospel,  even  the  single  brief  passage 
generally  made  the  chief  reliance,^  showing  so  close  affinity 
with  I  Pt.  1 13,  23,  Mt.  18:3,  and  Clem.  Horn,  xi,  26,  and  de- 
parting so  widely  from  the  Johannine  form  as  to  lead  Bousset 
and  Edwin  Abbott  to  the  conclusion  that  the  logion  at  least 
is  taken  from  an  extracanonical  source  ?  ■* 

Answers  of  a  certain  sort  have  been  found  for  these  ques- 
tions. "The  Gospel  had  not  yet  obtained  currency."  "Jus- 
tin had  no  copy  with  him."  "He  was  prejudiced  against 
it  by  Gnostic  use."  "Its  esoteric  character  made  it  unsuitable 
for  general  use."  ■'    Our  own  ignorance  has  been  appealed  to, 

1  Dialogue  Ti'ilh  Trypho,  Ixxxi. 

2  Dial.  ciii.  6.  (prifii  vird  tCiv  o.ttoo'tSXwv  avroO  Kal  rCiv  (Keivois  irapaKO- 
XovOrjffdvTwv  ffvirreraxdai.  The  quotation  here  introduced  is  the  inter- 
polation in  Luke  22:43-44.  In  cvi,  where  the  naming  of  the  sons  of  Zebedee 
Boanerges  is  referred  to,  the  gospel  which  alone  contains  the  incident  is 
spoken  of  as  "his  {i.  e.,  Peter's)  memoirs."  The  phrase  "apostles  and 
their  followers,"  which  Westcott  would  make  to  include  John,  cannot  fairly 
be  required  to  include  more  than  the  two  apostles  Matthew  and  Peter. 

3  Jn.  2'  3<  5)  ^^  Justin's  Apology,  I,  Ixi. 

*  See  Encycl.  Bihl.,  s.  v.  "Gospels,"  col.  1833  f. 

5  Professor  Sanday,  in  the  Expositor,  1891,  even  esteemed  it  altogether  the 
best  reply  that  can  be  made,  a  reply  "sufficient  to  invalidate  Dr.  Abbott's 
whole  position,"  to  say  that  "By  precisely  the  same  mode  of  reasoning  it 
might  be  proved  that  Justin  recognized  none,  or  only  one,  of  St.  Paul's 
Epistles,  at  a  time  when  his  opponent,  the  heretic  Marcion,  certainly  recog- 


94  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

and  justly.  But  can  it  be  said  that  these  arc  satisfactory 
answers  ?  Is  there  not  a  startling  contrast  still  to  be  accounted 
for  between  Justin  and  the  generation  after  in  their  treat- 
ment of  this  Gospel  as  compared,  say,  with  Matthew?  And 
as  regards  its  claims  of  apostolicity  and  those  of  Revelation  ? 
Was  Justin  ignorant  of  Jn.  21:24,  or  did  he  refuse  it  cre- 
dence ? 

And  the  phenomena  which  meet  us  so  startlingly  in  Jus- 
tin simply  increase  in  cogency  as  wc  come  nearer  to  the  very 
spot  and  date  whence  the  Gospel  has  always  been  held  to 
emanate.  Just  because  Papias  and  Polycarp  betray  casually 
ian  acquaintance  with  I  John,  it  is  the  more  surprising  that 
they  indicate  not  a  trace  of  acquaintance  with  the  Apostle 
as  an  author,^  just  because  Ignatius  is  concerned  to  refute 
the  same  Cerinthian  type  of  Docetism  antagonized  in  the 
First  Epistle,  and  (according  to  both  tradition  and  internal 
evidence)  in  the  Gospel,  just  because  he  has  recourse  to  a 
Logos-doctrine  which  is  far  cruder  than  the  Johannine,  and 
yet  resembles  it,  and  because  his  very  language  has  here  and 
'there  a  "Johannine"  tinge,  and  because  he  is  writing  from 
the  very  scene  of  the  Apostle's  latest  days,  it  is  the  more 
extraordinary  that  he  should  pass  by  the  story  of  the  dis- 
pelling of  Thomas'  doubts,  Jn.  20:  27,  and  the  scene  of  post- 
resurrection  eating  with  the  eleven,  Jn.  21:9-14,  and  resort 
to  an  apocryphal  gospel  of  unknown  origin  to  prove  to  the 
Smyrnaeans  the  reality  of  the  resurrection  body  against  the 
Docetae.^ 

nized  ten  of  them."  But  what  sort  of  authority  would  Paul's  Epistles  have 
been  for  Justin  in  his  endeavor  to  give  the  heathen  a  correct  idea  of  the  life 
and  teaching  of  Jesus  ?  And  of  what  use  would  they  have  been  in  persuading 
a  Jew  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah  and  taught  a  Zo^o5-doctrine  similar  to 
Justin's  own? 

1  The  exception  above  noted,  that  Papias,  like  Justin,  vouched  for  the 
genuineness  of  Revelation,  should  be  rememliered. 

2  Ignatius,  Ad  Smyrn.  iii,  2.      See  Lightfoot,  A  post.  Fathers,  as  to  the 
derivation  of  the  quotation. 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  SILENCE  95 

That  Hcrmas,^  and  the  ^Lhax%  and  Barnabas,  and  the 
Smyrnivans,  and  Clement  of  Rome  are  silent,  both  as  to  the 
Apostle  and  anything  written  by  him,  is  scarcely  to  the  point, 
since  nothing  was  perhaps  to  be  expected.  But  if  any  are 
disposed  to  find  "Johannine"  echoes  in  the  cucharistic 
prayers  of  AiSa;)^?;,  or  elsewhere  in  these  early  writings,  it 
simply  increases  the  difficulty  of  accounting  for  the  two  un- 
accountable things,  (i)  the  general  non-employment  of  the 
Gospel,  (2)  the  apparent  universal  ignorance  of  its  claims  to 
apostoHc  authorship. 

As  the  outcome  of  the  changed  aspect  given  to  the  external 
evidence  by  modern  phases  of  the  Johannine  problem,  it 
appears  thus,  finally,  that  Lightfoot  was  indeed  right  in  de- 
claring both  the  silence  and  the  utterance  of  the  earliest 
writers  to  be  eloquent.  Only,  now  that  both  our  knowledge 
of  utterances  and  our  understanding  of  silences  has  increased, 
there  is  very  much  to  turn  the  inferences  once  drawn  in  al- 
most the  opposite  direction.  Eighteen  years  ago  Drs.  Schiirer 
and  Sanday  were  already  agreed  on  the  conclusiveness  of  the 
external  evidence  regarding  the  early  existence  of  the  Gos- 
pel. They  were  divided  in  opinion  as  to  whether  the  balance 
of  this  evidence  inchned  in  favor  of  the  Johannine  author- 
ship. To-day  the  agreed  point  is  much  more  emphatically 
determined  than  before;  the  question  is  now,  What  kind  of 

1  The  proof  of  the  use  of  the  "sacred  quaternion"  of  the  Gospels  by 
Hernias,  expected  by  Professor  Sanday  in  1891  {Jixpositor,  iv,  4,  p.  4iy),  has 
resolved  itself  into  the  simple  fact  that  the  four  supports  of  the  seat  on  which 
Ecclcsia  sits,  which  Irencens  adopts  as  an  allegorical  type  of  the  four  gospels, 
are  found  in  Hermas  {Vis.  iii,  it^).  Only,  the  application  made  by  Hermas 
is  not  that  of  Irenaeus,  III,  xi,  8,  but  simply:  "Whereas  thou  sawest  her  seated 
on  a  couch,  the  position  is  a  firm  one;  for  the  couch  has  four  feet  and  standeth 
firmly;  for  the  world  too  is  uphekl  by  means  of  four  elements."  Dr.  C.  Taylor 
developed  the  promised  "proof"  in  1892,  under  the  title  The  Witness  of 
Hermas  to  the  Four  Gospels,  which  Harnack  very  unceremoniously  dismisses 
as  "mere  inepta."  Stanton,  Gospels.,  etc.,  p.  47,  note  3,  is  more  gentle  in 
finding  it  "impossible  to  adopt  his  view." 


96  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

existence  had  the  Fourth  Gospel  in  the  first  half  of  the  second 
century?  Did  it  circulate  in  its  present  form,  and  accom- 
panied by  its  present  "letter  of  commendation"  in  the  so- 
called  Appendix?  Did  it  circulate,  as  Lightfoot  supposed, 
with  both  this  and  I  John  besides  attached  to  it  as  a 
"commendatory  letter"?  Or  does  a  use  barely  sufficient  to 
prove  its  early  existence,  even  when  helped  out  from  Gnostic 
sources,  and  by  echoes  so  remote  as  to  suggest  something 
quite  unlike  our  form  of  the  text,  accompanied  by  a  silence 
on  the  question  of  authorship,  more  marked  the  further  we 
recede  from  the  stalwart  claims  of  Irenaeus  and  the  argu- 
menia  toward  the  actual  time  and  place  of  origin, — do  these 
complementary  lines  of  evidence  to-day  tend  to  show  that 
the  notion  of  direct  apostohc  authorship  is  a  later  develop- 
ment? 

Against  these  debated  questions  we  may  well  propound 
in  briefest  form  what  we  regard  as  the  real  facts  concerning 
evangelic  tradition  in  the  Sub-apostolic  Age,  and  the  au- 
thority attached  to  it  in  the  various  provinces  of  the  ecclesi- 
astical world;  for  as  Harnack  has  admirably  set  forth, ^  the 
circulation  of  a  fourjold  gospel  is  not  only  a  phenomenon  of 
late  appearance,  for  which  battle  is  still  being  vigorously 
waged  by  Irenaeus  and  the  author  of  the  Muratorianum; 
it  is  in  itself  a  complete  anomaly,  whose  explanation  may 
be  expected  to  shed  a  flood  of  light  upon  the  obscurities  of 
the  tradition.  The  only  normal  and  intelligible  beginning — ■ 
and  of  this  primitive  condition  many  traces  survive — is  one 
in  which  the  Church  embodies  its  whole  "evangehc  instru- 
ment" in  a  single  gospel — as  indeed  it  repeatedly  attempted 
to  do,  and  the  founders  of  heretical  churches  almost  invariably 
did.  A  remote  period  is  dimly  discernible  when  the  ortho- 
dox Church  also  had  but  one  gospel.  It  was  written  in 
Aramaic  and  hence  confined  in  circulation  to  Palestine.     It 

1  Chronologic,  p.  68 1. 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  SILENCE  97 

was  said  to  have  been  a  compilation  by  the  Apostle  Matthew 
of  the  Sayings  of  the  Lord.  But  at  the  earliest  period  to 
which  we  can  trace  the  story,  this  primitive  gospel  had  as- 
sumed several  variant  Greek  forms.  As  the  Church  ex- 
panded this  growth  was  inevitable.  In  Palestine,  however, 
"the"  gospel  continued  for  centuries  to  be  the  Gospel  ac- 
cording to  Matthew,  however  varied  the  forms  assumed. 
Of  these  forms  (Papias'  "translations")  one  was  our  own 
Greek  Matthew,  which  may  have  been  comj)osed  in  Ca^sarca, 
or  perhaj)s  Alexandria;  others,  written  in  Aramaic,  circulated 
in  Palestine.  The  Greek  Matthew,  however,  is  known  and 
accepted  everywhere  in  the  earliest  times;  only,  as  every 
modern  student  knows,  canonical  IMatthew  is  already  a 
product  of  fusion.  It  combines  the  ancient  Matthoean  Say- 
ings (Q)  with  the  Roman  gospel  founded  on  Petrine  narra- 
tive, attributed  to  Paul's  companion  Mark.  And  the  com- 
bination itself  displays  a  Palestinian  or  South  Syrian  origin, 
as  indeed  we  find  these  two  sources  (the  Sayings  and  Mark) 
recognized  by  the  (Palestinian)  "Elders"  of  Papias.  ]\Iat- 
thew  and  Mark,  the  Palestinian  and  the  Roman  gospels,  are 
the  only  ones  of  which  we  have  traces  everywhere  in  the 
earliest  time.  They  alone  circulate  without  "letters  of  com- 
mendation" in  the  form  of  i)r;.'face  or  appendix.  Indeed, 
outside  of  its  native  Rome  even  Mark  is  not  treated  with  a 
resj)ect  approaching  that  paid  to  Matthew.  "The"  gospel 
for  the  Didache  is  Matthew.  Quotations,  whether  in  Asia, 
Syria,  Egypt,  or  even  Rome,  are  almost  invariably  from 
Matthew.  Mark  is  seldom  used,  and  an  apologetic  tone  is 
assumed  in  speaking  of  its  limitations. 

Later  there  appears  in  Antioch  '  a  new  combination  of  the 

1  .Ancient  tradition  (Eusebius,  H .  E.  Ill,  iv,  7),  early  employment  (Mar- 
cion,  Basilides),  and  internal  characteristics  (settlement  of  the  issue  between 
Jews  and  Gentiles  in  the  Church  on  a  Petrine  basis  at  the  instance  of  An- 
tioch) combine  to  prove  Luke-Acts  an  Antiochian  product. 
Fourth  Gospel — 7 


98  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Matthaean  Sayings  with  Mark,  developed  with  great  literary 
skill  and  with  the  aid  of  ancient  missionary  records  into  a 
complete  history  of  the  founding  of  the  Church.  This  third 
gospel  and  book  of  Acts  is  put  forth  under  distinguished 
patronage.^  It  is  carried  to  Rome  and  to  Alexandria.  In 
Asia  it  strongly  influences  the  author  of  our  Fourth  Gospel. 
By  Marcion  and  Basilides  it  is  adopted  as  "the"  gospel. 
It  is  placed  at  least  on  equal  terms  with  Matthew  and  Mark 
by  Justin,  and  even  a  new  conclusion  is  framed  to  the  latter 
gospel  adapting  its  resurrection  narrative  to  the  Lukan  form. 
The  Gospel  oj  Peter  effects  a  harmonizing  combination  of 
the  three.  Only  in  Asia  is  there  little  trace,  outside  the 
Fourth  Gospel  itself,  of  any  disposition  to  take  up  the  An- 
tiochian  gospel.  Papias,  if  he  knew  it,  would  seem  to  have 
classed  it  with  the  "books"  which  to  him  were  of  less  value 
than  "the  living  and  abiding  voice."  He  perhaps  included 
the  Fourth  Gospel  in  the  same  category.  Asia,  as  we  know, 
had  given  a  welcome  to  the  South  Syrian  embodiment  of 
Matthaean  tradition  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  the  Roman 
embodiment  of  Petrine  tradition  on  the  other.  In  this  head- 
quarters of  the  Pauline  Greek  mission  field  both  tendencies 
were  thoroughly  felt,  intense  loyalty  to  the  independent  mysti- 
cism of  Paul,  and  at  the  same  time  a  disposition  to  revert  to 
"the  word  handed  down  from  the  beginning"  (in  Palestine) 
against  heretical,  ultra-Pauhne  perverters  of  the  oracles  of 
the  Lord  and  deniers  of  the  resurrection  and  judgment. 
From  its  whole  history  Asia  could  not  be  satisfied  with  any 
modern  product  not  fundamentally  akin  to  its  own  lofty 
Paulinism.  Its  own  evangehc  tradition  remained  long  un- 
formulated, as  we  might  expect  would  be  the  case  from 
Paul's  comparative  indifference  to  the  mere  story  of  the 
earthly  Jesus.  When  at  last  formulated  it  displayed  that 
lofty  eclecticism  and  disdain  of  the  mere  conventionalized 

1  Lk.  1:3;  Acts  1:1,  KpcLT  i(TT  €   Gei^tXe. 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  SILENCE  99 

Synoptic  form  which  only  a  Pauline  mysticism  could  pro- 
duce. For  long  it  is  the  name  of  Paul,  and  only  of  Paul, 
by  which  the  Asiatic  type  of  evangelic  tradition,  distin- 
guished especially  by  the  Logos-doctrine,  is  supported. 
After  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  at  Rome,  we  find 
the  name  of  "John"  attached  to  it,  which  previously  is  as- 
sociated only  with  the  book,  of  Revelation,  an  Asiatic  recast, 
as  its  preliminary  letters  to  the  seven  Churches  of  Asia  at- 
test, of  a  Palestinian  Apocalypse.  The  first  attempt  to  se- 
cure for  the  Gospel  and  Epistles  the  same  apostolic  authority 
A'igorously — and  it  would  seem  successfully — asserted  for 
the  Apocalypse,  is  made  (in  a  very  cautious  and  almost  am- 
biguous manner)  in  an  Appendix,  attached,  it  would  seem, 
at  Rome,  The  whole  object  of  this  Appendix  is  to  adjust 
the  claims  of  the  Gospel  to  those  of  a  regnant  Petrine  tra- 
dition. The  oftlcc  of  chief  under-shepherd  of  the  flock  of 
Christ  is  here  conceded  to  Peter,  together  with  the  crown  of 
martyrdom.  Only  for  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved "  there 
is  reserved  the  special  and  unique  function  belonging  to  the 
("abiding  witness";  not  indeed  that  once  accepted  in  the 
Church  "that  that  disciple  should  not  die";  but  in  the  new 
and  vital  sense  that  his  "witness"  shall  remain  as  the  "true" 
interpretation  of  the  faith,  the  essential  "  mind  of  Christ," 
With  this  epilogue  of  commendation  to  a  world-wide  circle 
our  Fourth  Gospel  is  "given  forth  to  the  churches," 

If  Rome  be  not  the  place  where  the  harmonizing  Appendix 
was  framed,  certainly  Rome  is  the  scene  of  the  great  contro- 
\cTsy  which  now  breaks  out,  as  it  would  seem  in  consequence 
of  it.  The  question  which  now  for  half  a  century  agitates 
the  Christian  world  with  respect  to  the  standard  of  evan- 
gelic tradition  is  that  of  a  single,  double,  threefold,  or  four- 
fold gospel,  Rome  is  the  inevitable  battle-field,  Tatian  seeks 
to  solve  the  problem  by  a  reduction  of  the  four  to  one  com- 
posite gospel;  and  his  solution  is  accepted  in  Syria,  his  na- 


loo  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

tive  place.  Theophilus  of  Antioch  follows  a  similar  plan. 
Gaius  of  Rome  rejects  the  Asiatic  gospel  on  account  of  its 
"discord  with  the  other  three."  Cerinthians  and  Docetists 
adopt  Mark  alone,  Basilides  Luke  alone,  Marcion  a  muti- 
lated form  of  Luke.  But  the  method  of  the  Catholic  Church 
has  always  been  inclusive,  and  in  the  matter  of  the  canon, 
more  especially  the  gospel  canon,  inclusion  and  combination 
had  been  the  method  established  from  the  very  start.  The 
long  established  double  standard  had  already  become  three- 
fold. The  only  logical  step  was  now  to  make  it  fourfold. 
Against  Proclus  and  his  few  Phrygian  Montanists  a  great 
scholar  and  ecclesiastic  like  Gaius  might  for  a  time  make 
head.  But  the  weight  of  all  Asia  and  the  increasing  spirit 
of  catholicity  w^as  against  him.  It  was  impossible  to  cut  off 
the  whole  province  of  Asia  by  excluding  its  form  of  gospel 
teaching.  Irenaeus,  proud  to  take  up  the  cause  of  Polycarp 
and  Polycarp's  associates,  as  he  esteemed  it,  swung  his  heavy 
battle-ax  against  the  "wretched  men"  who  think  that  in 
the  nature  of  the  case  there  can  be  less  than  four  gospels. 
In  particular  he  denounced  those  who  dared  to  question 
"that  aspect  which  is  presented  by  John's  Gospel."  Hippoly- 
tus  overwhelmed  them  with  his  learning  and  logic,  and 
elaborated  a  chronology  to  remove  the  discrepancies  between 
the  Synoptics  and  John  developed  during  the  Paschal  con- 
troversies. Such  in  outhne  is  the  course  of  history  as  we  read 
it,  in  place  of  that  fides  semper  eadem,  that  unbroken  trans- 
mission of  a  fourfold  "evangelic  instrument  having  for  its 
authors  Apostles,  on  whom  this  charge  was  imposed  by  the 
Lord  himself,"  which  Catholic  theory  presents. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    TRADITION    AS    TO    THE     ELDERS    AND    ITS    TRANSFOR- 
MATIONS ^ 

All  discussion  of  the  origin  and  history  of  the  tradition  of 
John  in  Asia,  and  as  author  of  the  Gospel,  must  necessarily 
begin  with  Papias.  The  famous  fragment  of  his  work  which 
contains  practically  all  we  know  of  the  beginnings  of  gospel 
composition,  and  forms  our  strongest  link  of  connection  with 
the  apostles,  is  quoted  by  Eusebius  in  an  endeavor  to  cor- 
rect what  has  been  designated  from  its  principal  j^romulgator 
the  "Irenoean  tradition"  of  apostles  in  Asia.  Eusebius  did 
not  criticize  this  in  its  whole  extent,  but  simply  in  so  far  as 
it  rested  on  the  statements  of  Papias.'  Shortly  before  ^ 
the  period  of  Irena^us'  work  (written  ca.  i86  a.  d.)  the  Roman 
presbyter  Gaius  in  debate  with  the  Montanist  Proclus,  had" 
repudiated  the  latter's  authorities,  the  Johanninc  writings, 
as  unauthentic.'*  Irensus  (followed  later  by  his  disciple 
Hippolytus,  whose  Heads  against  Gaius  are  still  extant  in 

1  Reprinted  by  permission  of  the  editors  from  the  Journal  of  Biblical 
Literature,  XXVII,  i  (July,  1908). 

2  The  section  begins:  "Irenaius  makes  mention  of  these  (the  five  books  of 
Exegesis)  as  the  only  works  written  by  him  (Papias)."  It  proceeds  to  cite 
and  criticize  his  description  of  Papias'  relation  to  the  apostles  and  to  Poly- 
carp,  as  below,  p.  117, 

3  Eusebius  dates  Gaius  under  Zcphyrinus  (//.  E.  II,  xxv,  6),  probably  too 
late. 

*  The  Dialogue  aimed  to  "curb  the  rashness  and  boldness  of  his  oppo- 
nents in  setting  forth  new  Scriptures."  It  maintained  the  authority  of 
"Peter  and  Paul"  (attributing  thirteen  letters  to  the  latter)  against  that 
of  the  writings  attributed  to  "a  great  apostle"  at  I^phcsus  {H.  E.  II,  xxv,  7; 
\T,  XX,  3;  III,  xxviii,  2).    Polycrates  {H.  E.  Ill,  xxxi,  3)  inverts  the  argument. 

lOI 


I02  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

abstract  ^)  became  their  stalwart  champion,  especially  de- 
fending the  Fourth  Gospel.  For  this  task  his  early  residence 
in  Asia  and  direct  eye  and  ear  knowledge  of  Polycarp,  a 
survivor  of  the  apostolic  age,  gave  him  an  advantage  of  which 
he  makes  the  utmost.  He  depends,  however,  for  all  his 
specific  citations  of  apostolic  tradition  upon  a  written  source, 
now  generally  admitted  to  have  been  the  work  of  Papias, 
entitled  KvpiaKcov  \oyi(ov  €^'r]'y^cret<;r  In  the  passage  wherein 
his  principal  quotation  is  made  he  designates  the  worthy 
bishop  of  Hierapolis  as  "a  man  of  the  earliest  period,  a 
hearer  of  John  and  companion  of  Polycarp."  ^  Eusebius  one 
hundred  and  forty  years  later,  having  the  work  of  Papias 
before  him,  and  examining  it  carefully  for  the  specific  pur- 
pose of  determining  this  particular  point,  had  no  difficulty 
in  showing  by  citation  of  the  passages  bearing  upon  the 
question  that  Irenasus  had  misinterpreted  them,  attributing 
to  Papias  a  much  closer  connection  with  the  apostolic  foun- 
tainhead  of  tradition  than  could  be  justly  claimed. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  Irenaeus  was  misled  by  his  zeal  to 
establish  the  unbroken  continuity  in  proconsular  Asia  of 
that  apostolic  tradition  whereof  he  counted  himself  a  provi- 
dential representative,  Eusebius  in  his  turn  cannot  be  alto- 
gether acquitted  of  similar  partiality.  He  also  had  read  the 
Dialogue  of  Proclus  and  Gains,  and  on  all  but  one  point  was 
as  ardently  opposed  as  Irenseus  himself  to  its  anti-Johannine 
criticism.  The  Roman  followers  of  Gaius,  one  of  whose 
favorite  arguments  was  to  point  to  the  disagreement  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  with  the  other  three,  were  to  Eusebius  as 
obnoxious  as  to  Hippolytus  and  to  the  author  of  the  Murato- 

1  See  J.  R.  Harris,  Herynas  in  Arcadia  and  Other  Essays,  1896. 

2  Lightfoot  {Bibl.  Essays,  pp.  64,  66,  68)  varies  from  the  reading  '£^777770-19 
to ' E|7777}(r6ts.  His  apparent  preference  for  the  plural  is  based  on  the  nature 
of  the  work  (p.  68,  note  2).  The  present  writer  was  guilty  of  oversight,  as 
Drummond  notes  (Authorship,  p.  195),  in  neglecting  the  variant. 

^  apxaios  av-fjp,  'ludvvov  a,Kov<TTr)%,  H.oKvKi.pirov  Bk  eraipoi. 


THE  APOSTLES  AND  ELDERS  103 

rianiim.  He  regarded  them  as  "senseless"  Alogi,  to  (juotc 
the  punning  epithet  of  Epiphanius/  men  who  for  the  sake  of 
ridding  themselves  of  the  excesses  of  the  "Phrygian  heresy" 
had  "emptied  out  the  baby  with  the  bath"  by  rejecting  the 
whole  Phrygo-Asiatic  canon — Gospel,  Ej)istles,-  and  Apoca- 
lypse of  John  together.  On  one  point  of  their  contention, 
however,  Eusebius  was  disposed  to  yield,  though  the  argu- 
ments which  had  convinced  him  were  not,  or  at  least  not 
directly,  those  of  Gaius.  Eusebius  had  been  profoundly 
influenced  by  the  reasoning  of  another  great  malleus  Jicrcli- 
conini,  Dionysius  of  Alexandria,  whose  o])ponents  the  ChiU- 
asts  based  their  millenarian  doctrines,  not  hkc  the  Phrygian 
champions  of  the  prophetic  Spirit  on  the  Johannine  canon 
as  a  whole,  but  simply  on  the  Apocalypse.  Dionysius  cut  the 
ground  from  under  their  feet  by  denying  its  apostolicity, 
though  he  maintained  as  cordially  as  ever  the  authenticity 
of  the  Gospel  and  at  least  of  the  first  of  the  Epistles.  Hence- 
forth Revelation,  the  writing  which  alone  of  the  five  made 
direct  claim  to  Johannine  authorship,  with  direct  and  ex- 
plicit attestation  by  both  Papias  and  Justin  Martyr,  be- 
came the  "disputed,"  and  the  other  four,  or  at  least  the 
Gospel  and  First  Epistle,  the  "undisputed"  Johannine  writ- 
ings. Eusebius  quotes  at  length  the  argument  of  Dionysius 
against  the  Apocalypse,  wherein  the  Alexandrian  scholar 
displays  the  skill  in  literary  criticism  one  might  anticipate 
in  a  pupil  of  Origen,  showing  how  completely  Revelation 
differs  in  style  and  standpoint  from  the  Gospel  and  Epistles. 

1  Epiphanius  in  this  portion  of  his  Refutation  of  All  Heresies  merely  re- 
flects Hippolytus,  the  disciple  of  Irenacus,  whose  Heads  against  Gains  give 
us  the  substance  of  his  refutation  of  the  presbyter. 

2  The  rejection  of  the  Epistles  seems  to  be  only  the  inference  of  Epipha- 
nius, but  it  was  doubtless  correct.  The  work  of  Hippolytus  in  the  list  of  his 
writings  on  the  back  of  the  statue  in  the  Lateran  Museum  is  called  only  a 
Defense  of  the  Gospel  and  Apocalypse  of  John.  The  Epistles  were  perhaps 
not  involved  in  the  dispute. 


104  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Eusebius  himself  was  anything  but  favorably  disposed 
toward  the  Chiliasts.  He  even  attributes  the  crude  escha- 
tology  he  found  represented  by  Justin  Martyr,  Irenaeus,  and 
other  members  of  the  Ephesian  school,  to  the  influence  of 
Papias,  whom  for  this  very  unfair  reason  he  contemptuously 
sets  down  as  "a  very  narrow-minded  man."  ^  We  are  not 
surprised,  therefore,  to  find  him  not  only  quoting  the  theory 
of  Dionysius  with  approval,  but  in  his  famous  list  of  "ad- 
mitted," "disputed,"  and  "spurious"  books  making  special 
exception  of  Revelation,  which  ij  by  the  Apostle  must  of 
course  be  admitted  as  canonical;  but  otherwise  cannot  even 
be  classed  with  the  "disputed"  books  {avTi\€<y6fieva)  which 
included  II  and  III  John,  but  must  take  its  place  with  the 
"spurious"  iyoda).-  To  impute  partiahty  to  Eusebius  with- 
out convincing  evidence  would  be  a  hazardous  proceeding; 
but  on  this  particular  matter  of  the  Apocalypse  of  John  the 
evidence  is  convincing,  for,  Blass  to  the  contrary  notwith- 
standing, Papias  certainly  did  make  repeated  and  copious 
use  of  this  book,  besides  attesting  its  "credibility"  {a^toTria-- 
Tov).  We  have  the  full  and  explicit  testimony  of  Andreas 
of  Caesarca,  supported  by  Anastasius  of  Sinai,  and  Yictori- 
nus,  to  say  nothing  of  Eusebius'  own  statements  regarding 
the  infection  of  millenarianism  which  spread  from  Papias 
through  Justin  to  Irenaeus.  Over  and  above  all  we  have 
Irenaeus'  testimonies  concerning  the  currency  of  Revela- 
tion among  "the  persons  who  had  seen  John  with  their 

1  (r<p68pa  fffiiKpbv  rbv  vovv, 

2  Stanton  {Gospels  as  Hist.  Documents,  p.  240),  who  thinks  that  if  the 
Dialogue  against  Proclus  had  rejected  the  Fourth  Gospel,  "Eusebius  could 
not  have  ignored  so  serious  a  departure,"  fails  to  perceive  that  Eusebius 
introduces  his  answer  to  Gaius  in  III,  xxiii,  xxiv.  Verj'^  shortly  before 
(ch.  xviii)  he  speaks  his  mind  on  the  origin  of  "the  so-called  Apocalypse  of 
John."  That  he  should  lend  weight  to  the  objections  "that  the  Gospels  are 
at  variance  with  one  another"  by  naming  as  their  author  the  "very  learned 
ecclesiastic"  Gaius  was  not  to  be  expected. 


THE  APOSTLES  AND  ELDERS  105 

eyes."  '  To  deny  weight  to  all  this  is  to  discredit  oneself, 
not  the  testimony.  Yet  Eusebius,  who  had  promised  to  give 
his  readers  the  evidence  he  found  in  early  writers  of  their 
use  of  books  whose  canonicity  was  in  dispute,  maintains 
complete  silence  regarding  Papias'  use  of  Revelation,  while 
he  mentions  his  "testimonies"  taken  from  I  Peter  and 
I  John.  Silence  under  such  conditions — silence  so  marked 
as  to  lead  not  only  Blass  but  even  Hilgenfeld  actually  to 
deny  Papias'  acquaintance  with  Revelation  ui  toto — cannot 
be  called  impartial. 

Clearly  Zahn  is  right  in  maintaining  that  no  scientific 
judgment  can  be  passed  upon  Eusebius'  correction  of  Ire- 
na?us'  inferences  from  Papias,  which  docs  not  give  due 
consideration  to  his  strong  bias  in  favor  of  Dionysius'  theory 
of  Revelation  as  the  work  of  "another  John  in  Asia."  In 
fact,  he  makes  direct  reference  to  Dionysius'  suggestion  in 
citing  the  passage  {rdv  hvo     .     .     .     elpi^Koroiv). 

Now  the  weak  point  of  Dionysius'  theory  had  been  his 
inabiUty  to  point  to  any  "other  John  in  Asia"  than  the 
Apostle,  for  he  does  not  himself  rely  upon  the  alleged  "two 
fivqfiara  in  Ephcsus  each  bearing  the  name  of  John,"  but 
prefers  to  identify  the  John  of  Revelation  with  John  Mark 
of  Acts.  It  is  here  that  Eusebius  comes  in  with  his  great 
discovery.  He  has  found,  he  thinks,  the  desired  evidence  in 
the  Papias  fragment.  Papias  does  indeed  refer  to  another  \ 
John  besides  the  Apostle,  for,  as  Eusebius  says,  "he  mentions 
him  after  an  interval,  and  places  him  among  others  outside 
the  number  of  the  Apostles,  placing  Aristion  before  him,  and 
distinctly  calls  him  an  Elder."  On  this  Elder  John  of  Papias 
Eusebius  therefore  eagerly  seizes,  as  evidence  "that  it  was 
the  second  (the  Elder),  if  one  will  not  admit  that  it  was  the 
first  (the  Apostle),  who  saw  the  Revelation,  which  is  as- 
cribed by  name  to  John."     He  has  the  candor  to  admit, 

'  Ireii.  V,  XXX,  i. 


io6  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

however,  that  Papias  did  not  really  state  that  he  had  been 
"himself  a  hearer  of  Aristion  and  the  Elder  John,"  but  only 
"mentioned  them  frequently  by  name  and  gave  their  tradi- 
tions in  his  writings."  We  see,  then,  that  while  Eusebius 
is  anxious  to  correct  Irenaeus  in  so  far  as  the  correction  would 
militate  against  Revelation,  he  is  as  anxious  as  any  other 
orthodox  father  not  to  undermine  the  support  of  the  rest 
of  the  Johannine  canon  by  weakening  those  links  of  tradition 
which  Irenaeus  had  boasted  of  as  connecting  himself  with 
the  Apostle,  for  it  is  certainly  Papias  that  Irenaeus  has  in 
mind  when  he  alleges  that  some  of  the  Asiatic  Elders  "saw 
not  only  John  (as  Polycarp  had)  but  other  Apostles  also,  and 
heard  these  things  (the  tradition  of  Jesus'  age)  from  them, 
and  testify  to  the  statement."  ^  The  present  "testify" 
(testantur)  shows  that  he  is  quoting  a  written  authority, 
which  can  be  no  other  than  Papias. 

It  is  important  to  observe  this  distinction  in  Eusebius' 
prejudices  in  weighing  Zahn's  endeavor  to  discredit  his 
statements.  He  was,  we  must  admit,  quite  perceptibly 
anxious  to  deprive  Revelation  of  its  claim  to  apostolicity. 
As  regards  all  other  elements  of  the  Irencean  tradition  he  was 
doubly  zealous  to  support  it.  His  eagerness  to  fmd  "another 
John  in  Asia"  does  indeed  require  a  discount  on  this  feature 
of  his  testimony.  In  fact,  the  concessive  yovv  ("at  all  events 
he  [Papias]  mentions  them  frequently  by  name,  and  gives 
their  traditions  in  his  writings")  is  nothing  less  than  an 
admission  that  his  imputation  of  a  personal  relation  between 
Papias  and  this  "Elder  John"  had  no  support  in  the  text. 
As  we  shall  see,  an  eye  not  prejudiced  like  that  of  Irenaeus, 
and  that  of  Eusebius  in  no  less  degree,  to  support  the  apos- 
tolic succession  of  Asia  would  have  drawn  quite  other  in- 
ferences. Dionysius,  for  example,  can  hardly  have  been 
ignorant  of  this  Elder  John.     So  renowned  a  scholar  can 

1  Her.  II,  xxii,  5;  Eusebius,  H.  E.  Ill,  xxlii,  3. 


THE  APOSTLES  AND  ELDERS  107 

scarcely  be  supposed  to  have  left  unnoticed  the  famous  work 
of  Papias  in  his  controversy  with  the  Chiliasts.  But  Dio- 
nysius  found  nothing  in  Papias  to  connect  "the  Elder  John" 
with  Asia.  In  this  "discovery,"  therefore,  Eusebius  could 
claim  complete  originality.  Contrariwise  as  respects  all 
other  points  of  the  Iren.xan  tradition.  From  these  Eusebius 
had  cogent  reason  for  subtracting  as  little  as  possible,  for  in 
his  own  earlier  work  ^  he  had  committed  himself  to  all  the 
exaggerations  of  Irenaeus,  ranking  Papias  in  the  generation 
along  with  Polycarp,  and  even  calling  him  in  Irenaeus'  own 
words  "a  hearer  of  John  the  Apostle."  Thus  the  stronger 
Zahn's  case  becomes  against  the  impartiality  of  Eusebius, 
the  stronger  grows  the  probability  that  Papias  knew  of  no 
John  in  Asia  at  all,  save  what  he  read  in  Rev.  i :  4-9. 

Effort  has  been  made  by  Zahn,^  and  especially  by  Gut- 
jahr,^  to  turn  to  account  the  new  evidence  afforded  by 
the  Syriac  version  of  Eusebius  in  the  interest  of  this  same 
heightening  of  the  rank  of  Papias  and  vindication  of  Ire- 
naeus' pretensions  on  his  behalf.  We  shall  endeavor  to  show 
on  the  contrary  that  the  pecuharities  of  this  extremely  an- 
cient translation  furnish  evidence  only  on  the  opposite  side. 
They  are  striking  enough  and  eminently  consistent,  for  all 
tend  to  the  very  object  the  Protestant  champion  of  reac- 
tionary views  and  his  Roman  Catholic  ally  have  so  much 
at  heart.  The  one  great  drawback  is  that  they  prove  alto- 
gether too  much,  evidencing  not  so  much  what  Eusebius 
wished  to  say,  as  what  the  translator,  whom  we  may  desig- 
nate S,  desired  to  make  him  say;  for  S's  loyalty  to  his  au- 
thor was  not  equal  to  his  loyalty  to  current  orthodoxy.  In 
short,  he  takes  sides  against  his  own  text  for  a  still  more 

1  Chronicon  for  Olymp.  220,  ed.  A.  Schoene  (1866),  II,  p.  162. 
^  Forschungen,  VI,  i.     Apostel  und  Apostelschiiler  in  der  Provinz  Asien, 
1900. 
3  Clauhwiirdigkeit  des  Irendischen  Zeugnisses,  1904. 


io8  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

stringent  interpretation  of  the  long-established  Irengean  tra- 
dition. Not  unnaturally  he  makes  the  same  kind  of  non- 
sense we  find  in  Biblical  versions  such  as  the  LXX  and 
Targums,  whose  authors  felt  it  necessary  to  be  more  ortho- 
dox than  the  Scriptural  writers  they  professed  to  translate. 
As  manifesting  this  Tendenz  even  the  blunders  and  arbitrary 
changes  of  S  have  value.  The  tenacity  of  the  Irena^an  tra- 
dition, in  the  teeth  of  positive  disproof  will  teach  us  two 
things:  (i)  A  juster  valuation  of  Eusebius'  opposition  to  it. 
We  shall  realize  both  how  impossible  it  is  that  Eusebius 
should  have  made  resistance  on  a  point  so  vital  to  the  Church, 
even  retracting  his  own  earlier  statements,  without  a  care- 
ful and  systematic  review  of  the  admitted  sole  source  of  in- 
formation on  the  subject;  ^  and  also  how  impossible  that 
having  made  it,  his  representations  should  have  gone  uncon- 
tradicted if  Papias'  treatise,  in  general  circulation  as  it  was 
for  centuries  after,  had  really  been  misrepresented. 

(2)  We  shall  also  better  realize  from  it  how  much  more 
serious  was  the  temptation  to  Eusebius  to  understate  his 
correction  than  to  overstate  it.  As  we  have  seen,  his  Chro- 
nology, a  substructure  of  his  History,  had  embodied  at  full 
face-value  Irenaeus'  erroneous  placing  of  Papias,  a  vital  link 
in  that  succession  of  "Apostles  and  disciples  of  Apostles 
in  Asia"  so  indispensable  to  all  defenders  of  the  Ephesian 
canon.  We  must  therefore  by  no  means  minimize,  but 
rather  take  at  their  maximum  value,  Eusebius'  admissions 
that  in  the  authority  on  which  so  much  of  his  case  rested 
there  was  no  claim  of  direct  relation  even  to  the  Elder  John. 
Eusebius  had  made  thorough  search  of  the  work  of  Papias, — 

1  It  was  essential  to  Eusebius'  argument  to  show  that  Irenaeus  had  no 
ulterior  source  of  information,  but  based  his  statements  on  the  passages 
adduced.  Hence  los  novuv  ypacpivruv.  Irenaeus'  exclusive  dependence  on 
the  written  work  for  his  knowledge  of  Papias  is  proved  (against  Gutjahr)  not 
merely  by  his  gross  misdating  of  the  man,  but  by  his  description  of  the 
source  of  his  information  i<TTC  yap  kt\. 


THE  APOSTLES  AND  ELDERS  109 

the  only  source  of  evidence  known  either  lo  Irenxus  or  him- 
self,— and  is  obliged  to  admit  that  even  the  lower  ranking 
which  he  tries  to  give  its  author  finds  no  support  in  the  book. 
The  Papias  passages  themselves, — the  most  favorable  Eu- 
scbius  was  able  to  find, — interpreted  in  their  own  context, 
place  their  author,  as  we  shall  see,  not  at  the  second,  but  at 
the  ////;-(/  remove  from  apostolic  authority.  Papias  was  not 
a  hearer  even  of  the  "disciples  of  the  Apostles"  yvoypLfiot 
rcov  uTToaToXoov.  Why  then  does  Eusebius  halt  half-way  in 
his  correction  of  the  error  of  Irena^us?  Our  study  of  his 
interest  in  current  questions  of  canonicity  leaves  the  motive 
transparent.  To  admit  that  Papias  had  not  even  been  a 
hearer  of  the  second  John  would  conflict  with  botJi  of  Eu- 
sebius' cherished  ideas.  He  would  then  be  sacrificing  both 
the  authenticity  of  the  Gospel  and  the  unauthcnticity  of  the  1 
Apocalypse  as  well.  Such  an  interpretation  would  have 
been  almost  as  obnoxious  to  him  as  to  Zahn  and  Gutjahr. 
And  yet  this  //z/r(/-hand  relation  of  Papias  to  the  apostles  is 
what  naturally  follows  from  Eusebius'  admissions.  It  is  in 
fact,  as  we  shall  see,  the  only  interpretation  which  can  give 
a  consistent  meaning  to  the  citation,  or  enable  us  to  under- 
stand TTpea-^vrepo'i  in  the  sense  always  attached  to  it  in  the 
period  in  question.    But  let  us  turn  now  to  S. 

The  Syriac  version  of  Eusebius'  History,  edited  in  France 
by  Bedjan  in  1897,  and  by  Wright  and  McLean  in  1898  in 
England,  is  of  extreme  antiquity.  It  is  known  in  a  Peters- 
burg manuscript  of  462  a.  d.,  a  London  manuscript  of  the 
sixth  century,  and  from  a  subsidiary  Armenian  version  (col- 
lated by  Merx  in  Wright  and  McLean's  edition)  made  be- 
fore 441  A.  D.;  so  that  there  is  some  ground  even  for  the 
claim  of  those  who  think  the  translator  may  have  been  a 
contemporary  of  Eusebius  himself.  For  our  purpose  it  is 
sufficient  to  place  in  one  column  the  accepted  Greek  text, 
with  collation  of  the  MS.  variants,  the  more  or  less  arbitrary 


no 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 


Latin  renderings  of  Rufinus  and  Jerome,  and  the  excerpts 
of  Nicephorus,  while  we  set  in  a  parallel  column  an  English 
rendering  of  Nestle's  translation  of  the  Syriac  carefully  com- 
pared with  the  original.^  ItaHcs  are  used  to  call  attention 
to  the  variations  of  the  Syriac  from  the  Greek  text,  []  for 
its  omissions. 

The  Papias  Fragment 


Greek  Eusebius 

OvK  OKvrjcru)  oe  croi  Kai  ocra 
irork  irapa  roJv  Trpea/SvTepwu  Ka- 
Aois  tfJuaOov  Kol  KaAws  ifjivrjfxo- 
vevcra  crvyKaTaTaiai  *  rats  ^pp-i]- 
5  vctais  SLa/ScfSaiov/Jievo';  iirip 
avTwv  dXyOeLav-  ov  yap  rots 
TO,  iroXXa  Xeyovaiv  ep^atpov 
<x)(nrep  ol  ttoWol,  ctAAa  tois 
TaXrjOrj    StSdcTKOva-iV,   ov8k   rois 

10  dAAorpias  evroAas  p.vqfx.ovevov- 
(TLV,  dAAo,  TOis  ras  ivapa  tov 
Kvpiov  rfj  TTiCTTtt  ScSo/xevas  *" 
Kai  a-TT  avTrj^  irapayivofX€voL<i  '^ 
T^s   akyjOtia^.      Ei   8e  ttov   kol 

15  TraprjKoXovdriKws  Tts  rots  irpea- 
fivripois  '^  iXdoL,  Tov<;  rwv 
Trpea/SvTipwv  aveKpivov"  Aoyovs, 

TL    'AvSpeaS    •^    TL    IIcTpOS    etTTCV 

rj  TL   4>tAt7r7ros    17    Tt    ©co/xas   r/ 


Syriac  Version 

I  do  not  scruple  to  adduce 
for  thee  in  these  interpreta- 
tions of  mine  that  also  which 
I  well  learned  [  ] "  from  the 
Elders  and  well  remember. 
And  I  attest  on  behalf  of 
these  men  ^  the  truth.  For  I 
did  not  take  delight  in  those 
who  have  much  to  say,  as 
many  do,  but  in  those  who 
teach  the  truth;  neither  in 
those  who  recall  command- 
ments of  strangers,  but  in 
those  who  transmit  what  was 
given  by  our  Lord  to  the  faith, 
and  is  derived  and  comes  from 
the  Truth  (itself).  Neither" 
did  I  when  any  one  came 
along    who    had    been    a    fol- 


1  By  the  kindness  of  Professor  C.  C.  Torrey. 

*  Var.     avvrd^ai     Ruf.    exponere  "  Syr.  om.  irore 

cum  interpretationibus  suis. 

''  Ruf,    qui   domini   mandata  me 
morabant. 

*^  Var.  trapayivonivas. 

^  Ruf.  apostolos. 

^  Ruf.   expiscabar.     Jer.  conside 
rabam. 


*  Syr.  masc. 

•^  Gressmann  {Th.   Liz.,    1901,    p. 
644)  (Contrariwise)  not  even  when. 


THE  APOSTLES  AND  ELDERS  m 

20'IaKO)^o5'  7)  Tt  'Iwari'7/9  >/  lower  of  thc  Elders,  compare 
Mar^uios  T/  Tts  er£/3os  twv  tov  the  words  of  thc  Elders:  what 
Kvptov  fmOr]Twv,  a  re  'Apia-  Andrew  said,  or  what  Peter 
TL(x)v  Kal  6  Trpeo-^vVcpos  'lojav-  said,  or  what  Philip,  or  what 
vr]<;  ol  TOV  Kvpiov  pad-qraX  Thomas,  or  what  James,  or 
25  Aeyovo-iv.'^  ov  yap  to.  ck  twv  what  John,  or  Matthew,  or 
/3i^AtW  ToaovTov  p.c  uxfyeXtLv  any  other  of  the  disciples  of 
vTreXdp.pavov  oaov  to.  irapa  our  Lord.  Nor  what  Aristo '' 
^o)(Tr]<:  (t>wvrj<i  Koi  fx.ivovarj'i .^         or  John  the  Elder  *  [  ]/     For 

I  did  not  think  that  I  could 
so  profit  from  llieir  "  books,  as 
from  the  living  and  abiding 
utterance. 

The  sense  given  by  S  to  thc  Papias  fragment  is  clear 
enough.  He  makes  Papias  distinguish  three  classes  of 
teaching:  (i)  "the  commandments  of  the  Lord,"  "thc  Truth 
itself,"  which  when  reported  by  thc  actual  car-witnesses 
could  be  described  as  a  "  living  and  abiding  utterance." 
These  are  the  object  of  Papias'  c^ucst.  (2)  The  second  class 
includes  "words  of  the  Elders,"  oral  or  written.  By  "the 
Elders"  S  understands  "the  disciples  of  our  Lord"  men- 
tioned by  name,  and  "Aristo  [sic]  and  John  the  Elder,"  the 
designation  of  the  last  two  by  the  same  title  as  the  apostles 
being  omitted.  To  "books"  S  attaches  the  possessive 
^' their  books,"  showing  that  he  is  thinking  of  the  Gospels. 
From  the  sayings  and  writings  of  "the  Elders"  (/.  e.,  apos- 
tles) ^  Papias  could  profit,  but  not  "so  profit  as  from  the 

*  Nic.  (Ill,   20)  ij  tI  'ZLfioiv  Id/cw-  ''  Arm.  Aristos. 

/3o5.  "  Arm.    the    elders;    simple    addi- 

•^  Ruf.     cetcrique    disc  ipuli    dice-       tion  of  the  plural  points  in  Syr. 
bant.     Jer.  discipuli  domini  lotiue-  •'^Syr.    om.    ol   tov  Kvplov   fxaOtjral 

bantur.    Nic.  (II,  46)  om.  X^yovcrif. 

^  Jer.  add.  in  suis  aui  toribus.  ^  Syr.  adrl.  their. 

1  Jerome  at  this  point  is  even  less  scrupulous  than  S.  To  make  it  per- 
fectly clear  that    'the  Elders"  are  really  the  men  of  the  first  generation,  he 


112  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

living  and  abiding  voice."  (3)  The  third  class  of  teaching 
includes  the  wonder-tales  or  "commandments  of  strangers" 
current  in  Papias'  vicinity,  but  which  were  useless  or  worse. 

To  obtain  this  sense  the  Greek  text  has  suffered ;  partly  by 
S's  intentional  reconstruction,  partly  by  accident.  The  ex- 
traordinary rendering,  "Neither  did  I  .  .  .  compare 
the  words  of  the  Elders,"  which  excites  the  wonderment  of 
Zahn  and  Gutjahr,  may  be  due  to  simple  accident.  GIAG 
has  been  misread  OYAG,  probably  from  illegibility  of  the 
first  two  letters.  The  rest  of  the  changes  are  systematic,  in- 
cluding the  omissions. 

Although  in  vol.  xvii  of  the  Journal  of  Bihl.  Lit.  (1898)  I 
had  already  published  previous  to  the  appearance  of  the 
Syriac  a  conjectural  emendation  of  the  clause  designating 
Aristion  and  John  the  Elder  as  "disciples of  the  Lord,"  point- 
ing out  that  several  references  in  Irenaeus  suggest  01  TOY  TO) 
MAOHTAI  instead  of  01  TOY  KY  MAGHTAI,!  and  that  tran- 
scriptional and  internal  evidence  alike  support  the  former 
reading,  I  cannot  agree  with  Mommscn,  who  welcomed  S's 
omission  here,  as  representing  the  true  reading. ^  On  the  con- 
trary, Corssen  ^  rightly  insists  that  some  designation  of  these 
unknown  men  is  indispensable  to  the  context.  Manifestly 
it  should  not  be  a  designation  identical  with  that  just  em- 
ployed for  the  apostles  themselves,  but  one  which  marks  the 
distinction   imperfectly   implied   in   the    contrast   of   tenses 

adds  in  the  last  clause  "in  the  person  of  their  authors,"  i.  e.,  the  apostolic 
authors  of  the  Gospels  (viva  vox  usque  hodie  in  suis  auctoribus  personans). 

1  Edwin  A.  Abbott  in  adopting  the  conjecture  {Encycl.  Bibl.  s.  v.  "  Gospels," 
col.  1815,  n.  3)  improves  upon  it  by  using  the  supra-linear  line  in  the  word 
TovToiv.  He  also  cites  an  instance  of  the  same  corruption  in  Jud.  4:24. 
LXX,  Twv  vioov  B,  but  A  kv  {i.  e.  Kvpwv)  viuv. 

2  Abbott  had  previously  taken  this  view  (/.  c.)  on  the  basis  of  Arm.  "  The 
words  'the  disciples  of  the  Lord'  can  hardly  have  followed  'Ariston,  etc.,' 
in  the  text  used  by  Eusebius.  .  .  .  This  ...  is  confirmed  by 
(i)  their  absence  from  the  Armian  version,"  etc. 

^  Zts.  f.  ntl.  Wiss.  iii  (1902),  p.  244. 


THE  APOSTLES  AND  ELDERS  113 

(etTre,  Xeyovai),  and  more  adequately  in  the  case  of  the 
second  individual,  who  might  otherwise  be  confused  with 
the  Apostle,  by  the  ei)ilhet  "the  Elder."  The  distinction 
should  be  that  of  the  second  generation,  as  in  Lk.  1:2; 
Heb.  2  -.T,.  The  original  in  Papias  was,  as  I  have  maintained 
and  still  maintain,  ol  tovtcov  /xadyjTcii,  i.  c,  "the  Elders  the 
disciples  of  the  Apostles,"  so  frequently  referred  to  in  Acts, 
Hegesippus,  and  authorities  dependent  on  Pai)ias.^  But 
the  corruption  is  earlier  than  Eusebius,  probably  earlier 
even  than  Irenicus.  In  Eusebius'  text  the  phrase  had 
already  been  assimilated  to  that  of  the  line  preceding,  else 
Eusebius  would  not  have  been  obliged  to  rely  on  gram- 
matical arguments  (hiaaretXa^;  rov  Xoyop  .  .  .  irpoTa^wi 
avTw  TOP  'Apia-TLova)  to  prove  his  point.  Indeed,  the  cor- 
ruption may  well  be  largely  responsible  for  the  blundering  of 
Irena^us  himself.  But  S  in  omitting  the  clause  is  nol  follow- 
ing a  better  text  of  Eusebius,  much  less  is  he  consulting  a 
text  of  Papias.  He  is  probably  not  even  sensitive  to  the 
"chronological  difhculty"  which  Lightfoot  himself  admitted 
to  be  occasioned  by  the  clause.-  On  the  contrary,  he  makes 
two  other  changes  in  harmony  with  the  Iremean  anachron- 
ism: he  omits  Trore  and  obUterates  the  difference  of  tense 
(etTre,  Xejovai),  the  only  remaining  trace  of  the  chronologi- 
cal distinction.  No,  S's  omission  (followed  by  Arm.)  is 
doubtless  occasioned  by  the  manifest  incongruity,  which  pro- 
duces the  same  result  in  one  of  the  two  excerpts  of  Nicej)horus 
Callistus,'''  not  to  speak  of  other  changes  by  Rufinus  and 
others'*  at  the  same  point.  "Aristo"  [sic]  and  "John  the 
Elder"  could  not  be  regarded  as  "disciples  of  the  Lord"  in 

1  E.  g.,  Irena;us,  Her.  V,  v,  i  and  xxxvi,  2,  "The  Elders,  the  disciples  of 
the  Apostles."    Euseb.  irapa  tQv  iKelvois  (the  apostles)  ■yvwplfj.wv. 
^  Supern.  ReL,  p.  150,  n. 

3  II,  46.    The  excerpt  III,  20  retains  it. 

4  Rufinus  omits  tov  Kvplov.    Four  Greek  MSS.  omit  ol. 

Fourth  Gospel — 8 


114  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

the  same  sense  as  the  designation  had  just  been  applied  to 
Andrew,  Peter,  Philip,  Thomas,  James,  John,  and  Matthew. 
Changes  were  felt  to  be  imperative.  Arm.,  which  simply  adds 
plural  points  to  the  Syriac  "the  Elder,"  makes  a  shrewd 
guess  at  the  real  meaning;  but  the  simplest  remedy  was  to 
drop  the  unintelhgible  clause  as  a  repetition.  S  understood 
very  well  that  Andrew,  Peter,  Philip,  and  the  rest  were  desig- 
nated fiadr^rdi  (not  aTTocrroXoL) ,  because  the  matter  con- 
cerned was  the  transmission  of  teachings  {fiaOrjixaTo).  He 
knew  the  first  "disciples"  included  no  such  names  as  "Aris- 
tion  and  John  the  Elder."  The  clause  was  patently  erro- 
neous; therefore  he  dropped  it  along  with  the  irore  and  the 
Xeyovcrc.  In  the  extract  he  does  but  one  further  violence 
to  his  text;  he  changes  the  spelling  of  the  name  "Aristio" 
to  "Aristo."  The  form  Aristo  then  becomes  current  in 
Armenian  texts,  being  adopted  in  the  Edschmiazin  Codex  of 
Conybcare  from  Moses  of  Chorene.  This  is  a  comparatively 
harmless,  though  mistaken  identification  of  the  unknown 
"Aristion"  with  "Aristo"  of  Pella,  a  heathen  writer^ 
quoted  by  Eusebius  a  few  pages  farther  on.  Moses  of 
Chorene  adds  to  the  quotation,  while  Maximus  Confessor, 
on  the  basis  of  a  (misunderstood?)  passage  of  Clement, 
declares  Aristion  to  have  been  the  author  of  the  Dialogue  of 
Jason  and  Papiscus.^  Gutjahr  is  probably  mistaken  in 
supposing  S  to  have  read  avveKpivov  for  aveKpivov  in  the 
clause,  "Neither  did  I  compare  the  words  of  the  Elders." 

1  Perhaps  the  same  as  Aristo  of  Gerasa  (30  miles  from  Pella)  referred  to 
as  an  oLffrdos  pi^Twp  by  Stephen  of  Byzantium. 

2  As  I  have  shown  elsewhere  (Hastings,  Diet,  of  Christ  and  Gospels,  s.  v. 
"Aristion"),  Conybeare's  apparent  discovery  of  the  authorship  of  Mk.  16: 
9—20  turns  out  to  be  a  mare's  nest.  Moses  of  Chorene  was  understood  by  the 
Armenian  scribe  to  have  declared  that  Hadrian  made  Aristo  of  Pella  the 
secretary  of  "Mark"  when  he  appointed  him  (Marcus)  bishop  of  Jerusalem. 
Hence  he  attributes  the  Appendix  which  he  introduces  for  the  first  time  into 
Armenian  codices  to  "the  Elder  Aristo,"  the  secretary  0/ Mark. 


THE  APOSTLES  AND  ELDERS  115 

S  renders  avcKpivov  in  the  same  way  elsewhere,  employing 
the  same  word  {p'ham)  for  "verify  by  comparison  (with 
the  Gospels)."  He  inserts  an  avrcdv,  as  we  have  seen,  after 
^i^Xioiv  in  1.  23,  and  renders  avrQv  in  1.  5  as  a  masculine — 
pardonable  liberties.  The  rest  of  his  variants  have  signifi- 
cance only  as  supporting  the  preferred  reading  Trapayivofievwi 
in  1.  12. 

The  net  result  of  S's  work  on  the  Papias  fragment  is  then 
as  follows:  Papias  appears,  as  in  Irenaus,  as  the  immediate 
ear-witness  of  more  than  seven  of  the  aj)ostles,  besides  two 
individuals,  one  of  whom  is  called  "the  Elder";  but  the 
words  of  Elders,  even  Apostle-Elders,  are  of  quite  subordinate 
value  to  him.  He  is  not  seeking  iheir  words,  but  words  of 
the  Lord,  to  which  they  can  bear  witness.  Needless  to  say 
this  is  not  the  sense  of  the  Greek.  Here  the  all-important 
word  is  the  term  Trpea-^vrepo'i,  four  times  repeated  in  the 
paragraph.  Their  words  are  just  what  Papias  is  after.  The 
"commandments  delivered  by  "the  Lord  to  the  faith"  have 
been  already  considered  wath  their  interpretations.  But  the 
interpretations  are  disputed.  As  Polycarp  had  declared  at 
a  much  earlier  date,  "the  oracles  of  the  Lord"  were  being 
perverted  by  the  Antinomians  to  their  own  lusts.  The 
heretics  denied  also  "the  resurrection  and  judgment."  The 
books  of  "John"  (the  Apostle  and  revelator)  and  of  "Mat- 
thew," ^  representing  as  they  did  the  apostolic  teaching  on 
the  two  points  of  doctrinal  contention  required  to  be  sup- 
plemented by  "turning  to  the  tradition  handed  down  from 
the  beginning."  It  is  exactly  this  which  Papias  undertakes 
to  do.  He  may  even  have  had  the  twenty-four  books  of 
Basilides'  Exegelica  in  mind  in  adopting  his  own  title.    But 

1  As  already  shown,  Papias  knows  John  the  Apostle  as  (reputed)  author 
of  Revelation.  He  "used  testimonies"  from  I  Jn.,  and  therefore  may  have 
knbwn  the  Fourth  Gospel.  That  he  considered  John  its  author  is  improba- 
ble.   His  "Matthew"  is  certainly  ours. 


ii6  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

we  shall  best  get  the  sense  of  Papias'  response  to  Polycarp's 
appeal  by  reproducing  the  paragraph  from  his  preface  in 
simple  outline.  The  process  is  easy,  for  in  spite  of  adverse 
criticism  the  style  of  the  fragment  is  admirably  clear  and 
logical;  its  structure  is  perfectly  in  accord  with  the  best 
principles  of  Greek  rhetoric.  Simply  drop  the  subordinate 
clauses,  and  sense  and  logic  force  themselves  free  of  the 
false  presuppositions  introduced  by  the  Iren^^an  misdating. 

%vyKaTaTd$o}  ocra  e/xaOov  irapa  twv  7rpeaf3vTepwv,  kul  inrkp  aiiToiv  ota- 
/SejSaLOvpxiL  aXydeiav 

ov  yap    .    .    .    dAAa  tois  ToXrjdrj    .    .    . 

oiioe   .    .    .    oAAa  ro'L<;  rots   .    .   .    r^s  dA.7^^etaS' 
€1    oe    TTOV    iraprjKoXovOrjKUi'i    ti<;    tols    7rpe(r(3vTepoL<;    eXOoL    tous    toiv 
Trpe'sfivTepwv  dveKpivov  Aoyovs"      .    .    . 

ov  yap  TO.  eK  twv  /Sl/SXcwv   .    .    . 

bcrov  TO.  Trapd  ^wcrr]^  cjiwinjs- 

Everything  here  concerns  the  traditions  of  "the  Elders" 
which  Papias  thinks  not  unworthy  to  be  subjoined  to  his 
interpretations  of  the  Lord's  oracles.  Hence  the  emphatic 
position  and  reiteration  of  the  word  "Elders."  He  bespeaks 
for  their  words  higher  consideration  than  such  traditions  are 
wont  to  receive  because  of  the  care  he  had  taken  in  col- 
lecting them.  This  method  he  then  describes  in  two  nega- 
tive clauses  and  one  affirmative :"  I  did  not  .  .  .  ,  nor  did 
I  .  .  .  ,  but  when  a  follower  of  the  Elders  came  along 
I  inquired  for  the  words  of  the  Elders."  Finally,  he  justifies 
his  going  beyond  the  instruction  of  his  own  teachers  by  the 
superiority  of  oral  tradition  thus  sifted  to  books. 

Whom  Papias  meant  by  "the  Elders"  we  have  yet  to 
inquire.  All  that  is  apparent  thus  far  is  that  it  is  not,  as  S 
supposes,  words  of  the  Lord  of  which  he  is  here  speaking, 
but  "words  of  the  Elders,"  and  that  he  gives  no  indication 
of  meaning  anything  different  by  the  term  "Elders"  in  one 
part  of  the  passage  from  what  he  means  in  another.    True, 


THE  APOSTLES  AND  ELDERS  117 

Euscbius,  and  Ircna'us  before  him,  took  "Elders"  in  1.  15  lo 
equal  "disciples  of  the  Lord."  Jerome  actually  adds  three 
words  to  the  text  (1.  26)  to  force  this  meaning  upon  it.  But 
the  evidence  that  Abbott  justly  demands  ^  that  the  word 
was  ever  so  used  has  yet  to  be  supplied.  Even  if  Iren^eus  and 
Euscbius  were  not  misled  by  the  corruption  of  rovrcov  to 
rov  Kvpi'ov,  we  have  seen  that  Irenajus  was  blinded  by  his 
own  prejudice  on  this  point,  and  Euscbius  was  similarly 
precluded  from  more  than  a  partial  correction.  The  real 
distinction  which  Papias  makes  is  between  teachings  from 
''books"  and  "words  of  the  Elders"  who  reported  the  ''living 
and  abiding  voice"  of  apostles.  The  latter  he  got  from 
chance  comers  who  had  been  their  (the  Elders')  followers, 
in  particular  followers  of  Aristion  and  the  Elder  John.  The 
former  he  had  obtained  Hke  others  about  him  from  those  who 
had  "taught  the  truth." 

But  since  we  are  now  dealing  only  with  S  and  his  evi- 
dences of  Tendenz,  let  us  leave  temporarily  his  distortion 
of  Papias,  and  see  what  he  makes  of  the  argument  of  Eusc- 
bius which  incloses  the  extract.  Here,  too,  we  find  the  same 
bias  in  favor  of  Euscbius'  opponent.  The  introductory  sen- 
tence runs  thus: 

Context  of  Eusebius 

AvTos   ye   firjv    6    IlaTrTruis  But     he,    Papias,    does    not 

Kara,  to  vpooLfiLov  tCjv  avroi)  slioii'   at   the   he  ginning   of   his 

Adywv  axpoaTr}v  fikv   kol   av-  words  that  he  had  heard  from 

TOTTTrjv  ovSa/xois  eavTov  yeve'cr-  the  holy  Apostles,  or  had  seen 

5  6(u     TU)v     upwv     aTToo-rdAwv  them.      But    that    he    had    re- 

IfK^aivu,  TraptLkyj4'€vaL   Se    to.  ccivcd  words  of  the  faith  from 

T^s  TTio-Tews  Trapa  tw>  eVetVot?  men  that  had  known  the  Apos- 

yvwpiijuov     StSacTKet.     Bt      wv  ties  he  teaches  in  these  words, 

(firjatv  Xe^ewv-  saying: 

1  Encycl.  Bibl.,  s.  v.  "Gospels,"  §  71. 


ii8 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 


Here  follows  the  extract  as  above;  thereafter: 


"lEivOa  Kal  iinaTrjaai  a^iov 
Si's  KaraptdixovvTL  avT<Z  to 
Iwavvov  ovofjia,  <dv  tov  /xtv 
trpoTtpov  rEeT/DO)  koX  laKw/Jw 
5  /cat  Mar^at'o)  Kol  tols  Xoittois 
aTTOCTToAot?  (TvyKaTakeyei,  cra- 
<f>u>?  8r)Xwv  TOV  tvayytXKTTijv , 
TOV  o  (.Ttpov  lojawT^v,  8ia- 
CTTeiXas  TOV  Xoyov,  eTepoL^  irapa 

10  TOV  Twv  d7rocrTdA.wv  apiOpov 
KaTaTafTdei,  irpOTa.^a'i  avTOV 
TOV  ApcaTnova,  o"a</)a)s  tc 
aiiTov  irpeafivTepov  6vop.dt,u- 
ojs  Kat  oia  tovtojv  oLTrootLKwaOaL 

15  T^v  IcTTOpLav  aXrjdrj  twv  St'o 
KttTtt  TT^v  Ao"tav  bp.(xivviXLa 
Ke)^prja6aL  elprjKOTWv,  8vo  tc 
€v    'Ec^e'croi    yevea$aL    fxvrjiULTa 

Kal    CKOLTipOV      IwaVVOD     CTL     vvv 

20  XiyeaOai-  ots  Kat  dvayKatov 
7r/3ocr£T^£iv  TOV  vow,  €i/cos  ya/3 
TOV  BevTepov,  el  p-yj  Tts  iOiXoL 
TOV  irpoiTov,  Trjv  Itt  6vopxiTO<; 
(f)epop.€vr]V      Ituavvov     aTroKoAu- 

25  i/'iv    iwpaKevar       kol  6    vvv    Sc 

ly/AtV   87^Aoi;/i.eVOS    naTTTTtaS    TGVS 

^£v  Toiv  d7roo"ToAa)v  Aoyovs 
irapa  twv  avTol'i  TraprjKoXov- 
OrjKOTOiv  6/i,oAoy€t  7rapeLXrj(J3€- 
30  vat,  Api(TTi(jivo';  Se  Kat  tov 
TTpecrpvTepov  Iwdvvou  avT-q- 
Koov    taDTov    </)r;crt    yeveV^af* 


But  here  it  is  requisite  for 
us  to  understand  that  he  twice 
enumerates  the  name  of  John; 
the  first,  he  reckons  him  to- 
gether with  Peter  and  James 
and  Matthew  and  the  rest  of 
the  Apostles,  simply  pointing 
to  the  Evangelist,"  but  the 
other  John,  him  he  distin- 
guishes by  the  word,  and  joins 
him  in  a  difjerent  way  to  the 
number  of  the  Apostles,  and 
places  Aristo  {sic)  before  him; 
and  him  he  distinctly  calls 
"Elder,"  so  that  we  show  from 
this  regarding  the  story  that 
it  is  true,  of  those  who  said 
that  there  were  two  in  Asia 
who  had  the  same  name,  and 
their  graves  are  in  Ephesus, 
and  both  to  this  day  are  called 
John;  since  it  behooves  us  to 
reflect  in  our  mind.  For  the 
Revelation  which  is  called 
John's,  if  one  do  not  admit 
that  it  is  from  John  the  Evan- 
gelist, it  is  probable  that  it 
was  manifested  to  this  other 
man.  But  he,  this  Papias,  of 
whom  we  have  now  given  ac- 
count, lestifies  that  he  received 
the  words  of  the  Apostles  from 


"  Ruf.  om.  de,  and  avrrjKoov 
yevecrdai. 


"  Lond.  Syr.:  the  evangelists. 


THE  APOSTLES  AND  ELDERS  119 

ovo/xaoTt    yorv ''    iroXXd.KL'i    av-       tllOSC    wlio    wcrc    llicir    follow- 

Tuiv  /xvrjfjiovtvaa';  iv  Tois  ovtou      ers,  and     from  Aristo  (^if)  and 

3o  (Tvyypdfjifxaaiv    Ttdrja-iv   avrwv      from  the  Folder  John.     For  he 

7ra/3tt8ocreis-  said    that    he    had    listened    to 

them  and  he  often  mentions 
them  by  name,  and  in  his 
books  he  records  the  tradition 
he  received  from  them. 

Now  that  we  have  supplied  the  key  to  these  systematic 
mistranslations  further  comment  is  needless.  We  only  sub- 
join one  further  passage  as  additional  proof  that  the  motive 
is,  as  stated,  to  restore  to  Pa])ias  as  much  as  possible  of  his 
authority  as  an  ap')(^alo<i  dvrjp  avTrjKoo^;  twv  diroaToXoyv,  in 
spite  of  Eusebius.  It  is  the  famous  passage  cited  by  Euse- 
bius  in  which  Irenaeus  quotes  Papias  by  name. 

Tavra  8c  koX  ITaTrTrwis  6  'Iwai/-  This  Papias  also  said,  who 

vov  aKovarr]-;  .   .  .  eyypa<^ws  €7rt-      heard   (it)   from   John     .     .     . 
fuipTvpd  ktX-  and  in  writing  he  testifies    .    .    . 

To  Gutjahr  this  translation  is  a  God-send,  for  it  makes 
him  a  present  of  the  most  serious  obstacle  to  his  theory,  the 
admitted  impossibility  of  grammatically  rendering  the  pas- 
sage as  if  it  read  Kal  iyypdcjico^j  instead  of  /cal  llaTnrta^. 
When  S  translates,  not  only  does  Papias  become  a  direct 
hearer  of  John,  but  Irena^us  becomes  a  direct  hearer  of 
Papias,  and  the  strength  of  the  traditional  succession  is 
doubled.     Hallelujah ! 

It  should  be  by  now  sufficiently  apparent  that  Irenjeus, 
Eusebius,  S,  and  Jerome  all  have  the  same  bent  as  regards 
the  interpretation  of  Papias.  Eusebius  is  far  more  of  a 
scholar,  and  confesses  that  the  vital  ])oint  of  his  contention 
for  "another  John  in  Asia"  known  to  Pay)ias  is  not  suj)- 

^  Ruf.  unde  et.  ^  Petersb.  Syr.,  Arm.  om. 


I20  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

ported  by  the  text;  but  on  the  question  of  Papias'  chrono- 
logical rank  in  the  succession  of  apostoHc  tradition  he  has 
the  same  propensity  and  the  same  prejudice  as  the  rest.  In- 
stead of  dating  his  work  in  145-160  a.  d.  as  does  Harnack, 
on  the  basis  of  the  recently  recovered  de  Boor  fragment/ 
which  shows  Papias  dependent  on  the  Apology  of  Quadratus, 
instead  of  recognizing  in  him  a  contemporary  of  Justin 
Martyr,  Eusebius  is  still  under  the  glamour  of  the  descrip- 
tion he  had  adopted  from  Irena^us  in  his  Chronology.  Papias 
was  an  apxalo^  (^^VP,  a  contemporary  if  not  strictly  an 
avTijKoo9  of  apostles,  so  that  those  to  whom  he  referred  as 
"the  Elders"  must  be  synchronous,  if  not  identical,  with 
"the  disciples  of  the  Lord."  How  much  of  this  idea  was 
due  to  the  textual  corruption  by  which  those  whom  Eusebius 
assumed  to  have  been  Papias'  immediate  informants  were 
also  designated  "the  disciples  of  the  Lord,"  we  need  not 
pause  to  estimate.  The  misconception  is  certainly  present, 
and  a  truly  dis[)assionate  exegesis  of  the  fragment  requires 
that  we  take  account  of  the  fact.  The  final  step  in  our  in- 
quiry, accordingly,  must  be  an  analysis  of  the  extract,  ap- 
proached without  either  of  the  Eusebian  prepossessions  as  to 
(a)  the  closeness  of  Papias  to  the  apostles,  or  (b)  his  relation 
to  "the  Elder  John,"  which,  if  immediate,  would  imply  that 
this  John  also  was  "in  Asia." 

We  note  that  Papias  "subjoins"  Words  of  the  Elders  to 
his  "interpretations"  in  spite  of  some  reason  for  hesitation 

I  Uavlas  6  eipy}nivos  l<TT6p7]<T€v  ws  vapaXa^wv  dirb  tuv  Ovyariposv  ^CKLirnov, 
6tl  Bapffa^ds  6  Kal  'Iovcttos  doKifj.a^6iJ.epos  xiirh  tQiv  dwldTijiv,  ibv  ix^SvTis  ttiwv  iv 
ovd/xaTi  Tov  Xpiarou  diradTts  diefpvXdxOv-  IffTopeT 5^  Kal  SXKa  datjfxara  Kal  fjAXurra 
TO  Kara,  ttjc  p.r}Tipa  '^lava'Cfwv  ttjv  e/c  veKpQv  dvaffrdaav.  irepl  rQf  virh  rov 
XpKTTov  e/c  veKpQv  dvacrravTwi'  &tl  ius  'Adpiavov  e^ojv.  Papias  seems  to  have 
taken  Quadratus'  statement  that  some  of  those  who  had  experienced  the 
miraculous  power  of  Jesus  in  healing  and  raising  from  the  dead  "Hved  even 
to  our  da.y"  as  referring  to  the  day  of  Hadrian,  to  whom  Quadratus  was  ad- 
dressing the  A  pology.  At  all  events,  his  reference  to  "  the  times  of  Hadrian  " 
implies  a  date  after  the  close  of  Hadrian's  reign. 


THE  APOSTLES  AND  ELDERS  121 

(ovK  oKvrjaa)).  They,  too,  have  value  as  intorprcling  the 
"commandments  given  by  the  Lord  to  the  faith,"  aUhough 
they  would  not  be  so  esteemed,  if  the  reader  did  not  know 
how  carefully  and  discriminatingly  they  had  been  gathered. 
For  (i)  Papias  can  testify  in  his  own  behalf  that  he  had 
given  heed  to  the  twofold  warning  of  Polycar[)  •  against  ri-jv 
fiuTaioTTjTa  TOiiv  TToWoiv,  as  well  as  ra?  ■^evhohLhaaKoXia'i. 
Both  these  classes  of  false  teaching  were  already  current  in 
^  Papias'  youth,  but  he  had  kept  himself  to  those  who  taught 
the  orthodox  faith.  But  (2)  he  had  not  confmed  himself  to 
what  these  teachers,  excellent  as  they  were,  could  give  him, 
but  had  sought  testimonies  of  the  apostles  themselves.  For 
Papias  had  also  followed  the  advice  of  Polycarp  in  "turn- 
ing to  the  tradition  handed  down  from  the  beginning." 
But  how?  Not,  of  course,  by  applying  directly  to  the  apos- 
tles themselves,  as  Irena^us  and  his  satellites,  ancient  and 
modern,  assume.  Such  a  sense  for  the  term  "words  of  the 
Elders"  makes  the  whole  passage  ridiculous.  Who  indeed 
would  "hesitate  to  subjoin"  to  his  own  "interpretations  of 
the  Lord's  words"  the  words  of  apostles — and  apologize  for 
the  addition!  But  the  "words  of  the  Elders"  are  here  con- 
trasted not  merely  with  the  fxaratoXoyia  rwv  iroWoiv  and 
the  dXXoTpiai  evroXai  of  the  Gnostics,  but  primarily  with 
ra  eK  rwv  /Si^Xicov,  which  his  own  teachers  in  Asia  had  given 
him,  but  which  "did  not  profit  so  much."  What,  then,  does 
Papias  mean  by  "Words  of  the  Elders"  ?  And  whence  does 
he  get  them?  If  one  could  depend  upon  the  emendation  0! 
TOYTOO  MAGHTAI  for  the  second  01  TOY  KY  MAGHTAI,  all 
would  be  plain;  for  we  should  then  understand  that  "the 
Elders"  in  Paj)ias  mean  "the  disciples  of  the  Apostles"  (01 
eKeivcov  yvwpifioi),  as  they  are  indeed  called  in  several  depend- 
ent passages.-  More  particularly  he  would  mean  the  group 
in  the  original  mother  church  and  home  of  the  apostles,  to 

1  AJ.  Phil,  vii.;  r/.  Papias,  11.  6-10.  ^  See  note  i,  p.  113. 


122  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

which  the  author  of  Luke-Acts  and  Hegesippus  look  back  as 
the  self-evident  authorities  in  interpreting  the  Lord's  com- 
mandments. "Aristion"  would  be  an  otherwise  unknown 
member  of  this  Palestinian  group,  "John  the  Elder,"  proba- 
bly identical  with  the  Jerusalem  Elder  of  that  name,^  whose 
death  is  placed  by  Epiphanius  in  117  a.  d.^ 

But  the  emendation  is  not  yet  admitted.  We  must  depend 
on  the  context. 

"The  Elder  John"  is  distinguished  from  the  Apostle  not 
merely  by  the  debatable  clause  and  title,  but  by  the  tense 
of  the  verb.  When  Papias  was  making  his  inquiries  the 
apostles  were  dead.  Many  of  "the  Elders  their  disciples" 
were  also  dead,  but  Aristion  and  the  Elder  John  were  still 
alive.  For  some  reason  (distance  seems  to  be  that  implied 
in  el  TL<;  eXOoi)  Papias  could  not  interrogate  these  Elders 
himself,  but  followers  of  theirs  who  came  his  way  reported 
to  him  the  teaching  they  were  then  still  giving.  The  same 
chance-comers,  or  others  like  them,  also  reported  the  sayings 
of  other  deceased  Elders  they  themselves  had  heard.  Such 
traditions  were  to  Papias  strictly  equivalent  to  teachings  of 
the  disciples  of  the  Lord,  "Andrew  .  .  .  Matthew,"  as 
giving  the  true  sense  of  the  Lord's  commandments.  They 
could  be  called  "living  and  abiding,"  because  reported  by  at 
least  two  surviving  car-witnesses.  Papias  not  unreasonably 
thought  them  worthy  of  altogether  different  consideration 
from  the  /-taratoT?;?  and  dWoTpiai  ivroXai  injuriously  preva- 
lent in  Asia.  They  even  seemed  to  him  of  more  advantage 
than  the  "books"  his  own  local  Elders  interpreted,  for 
Papias  seems  to  have  known  no  strictly  apostolic  gospels 
for  the  determination  of  the  real  intent  of  "the  oracles  of 
the  Lord."  What  their  real  value  was  we  have  several 
examples  to  inform  us — the  tradition  of  the  woman  taken 

1  Euseb.  H.  E.  IV,  v,  3.  2  Haer.  Ixvi,  20. 


THE  APOSTLES  AND  ELDERS  123 

in  adultery,*  of  Jesus'  senior  age,-  of  the  miraculous  fertility 
of  the  soil  in  the  messianic  age/'  of  the  three  degrees  in 
heaven/  etc. 

The  interi)retation  liere  given  to  the  fragment  rests  pri- 
marily upon  the  ])rinciple  that  it  is  unjustifiable  to  give  a 
fundamentally  different  sense  to  the  most  saUcnt  word  of 
the  paragraph  {7rpea^vT€po<;)  in  four  adjacent  clauses,  or  to 
draw  an  arbitrary  line  between  the  series  of  imperfects  in 
which  the  author  describes  his  preparation  for  his  task 
{cfiaOov,  e'X^aipov,  dveKpivov,  vireXd/x^avov). 

It  is  true  that  in  11.  6-13  Papias  refers  to  his  teachers 
{hihda-Kovaiv),  who  need  not  necessarily  be  identical  with 
the  "followers  of  the  Elders"  (iraprjKo'X.ovOrjKca'i  rt?  Toi<i 
7r/)eo-/3uTe/30i9),  but  to  whom  we  have  still  less  reason  to  apply 
the  title  "the  Elders"  in  1.  2.  It  is  true  that  he  contrasts 
their  simpUcity  and  orthodoxy  with  the  equalities  which  at- 
tracted the  crowd.  But  this  is  not  for  the  sake  of  giving 
the  reader  conlidence  in  these  unknown  men,  but  in  the 
judgment  of  Papias  himself,  whose  tastes  were  unlike  the 
multitude's  (exatpov).  But  why,  if  Papias'  teachers  taught 
him  "the  truth,"  "commandments  given  by  the  Lord  to  the 
faith,"  does  he  resort  to  others?  Every  reader  asks  himself 
the  question,  and  none  of  those  whose  hearts  are  set  on  the 
assumption  that  his  teachers  were  themselves  "the  Elders" 
(or  even  the  apostles!)  gives  any  heed  to  the  answer  Papias 
himself  sets  down  with  all  expHcitness.  He  questioned 
travelers  who  "came  his  way"  because  only  thus  could  he 
get  "the  living  and  abiding  voice"  of  apostles,  the  same 
which  to  his  mind  guaranteed  the  inerrancy  {ovSev  rjixapre) 
of  Mark.  From  chance-comers  who  had  been  followers  of 
"the  Elders"  (the  same  referred  to  in  1.  2)  he  inquired  what 
(by  the  Elders'  testimony)  the  apostles  had  said,  and  what 

1  Euseb.  H.  E.  Ill,  xxxix,  i6.  ^  Iren.  Her.  II,  xxii,  5. 

2  Ibid.,  V,  xxxiii,  3.  ^  Ibid.,  V.  xxxvi,  i,  2. 


124  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

the  surviving  Elders  were  saying.  He  thought  he  could 
learn  more  from  these  well-authenticated  "Hving"  words  of 
the  Elders  than  from  his  own  home  teachers,  because  the 
latter,  excellent  as  they  were,  could  only  give  him  the  con- 
tents of  books  {ra  eK  rwv  ^i/SXicov). 

Who,  then,  were  "the  Elders"  whose  words  the  chance- 
comers  reported?  We  have  two  means  of  judging,  (i)  Eu- 
sebius  tells  us  that  the  authorities  largely  reHed  on  by  Papias 
for  this  kind  of  material  were  the  Aristion  and  John  men- 
tioned, the  latter  of  whom  is  "distinctly  called  an  Elder" 
to  distinguish  him  from  the  apostle  of  the  same  name.  In 
the  same  generation  were  the  daughters  of  PhiHp,  whose 
traditions  probably  also  came  to  Papias  at  second  hand. 
But  these  were  themselves  in  Hierapolis,  and  were  not 
Elders.  He  does  not  mean  these,  nor  does  he  mean  Poly- 
carp,  whom,  if  he  were  not  among  the  teachers  who  "taught 
the  truth,"  we  should  expect  to  find  named.  He  means  a 
group  or  class  in  which  neither  Polycarp  nor  the  daughters 
of  PhiHp  would  naturally  be  thought  of  by  the  reader,  but 
which  did  include  "Aristion  and  the  Elder  John."  (2)  Ire- 
nseus  preserves  for  us  a  number  of  the  traditions  in  question, 
which  have  indeed  a  strongly  Jewish-Christian  and  chiliastic 
character,  but  are  quite  too  legendary  and  artificial  to  be 
really  derived  from  apostles.  Their  character  is  that  of 
Jewish  midrash,  particularly  that  based  on  the  fanciful  in- 
terpretation of  Gen.  27:28  in  the  Apocalypse  0}  Baruch,^ 
and  the  equally  fanciful  combination  of  Mt.  13:8  with 
Mt.  20:28  (/S  text)  to  support  the  doctrine  of  three  degrees 
in  the  future  abode  of  the  righteous — Heaven,  Paradise, 
and  "the  City"  {i.  e.,  Jerusalem). 

Both  indications  concur  to  prove  that  "the  Elders"  in  this 
case  were  no  more  apostles  than  were  Papias'  own  teachers. 

1  Ap.  Bar.  xxix,  5.  See  Rendel  Harris  in  Expositor,  1895,  pp^  448-449, 
and  R.  H.  Charles,  Apoc.  of  Baruch,  p.  55,  note. 


THE  APOSTLES  AND  ELDERS  125 

The  advantage  of  their  words  was  not  their  i)roxImity  to 
the  apostles  in  time,  but  in  place.  Their  words  were  brought 
[idv  Ti?  eXOoi)  from  the  seat  of  the  "Hving  and  abiding 
voice."  Had  the  chance-comers  themselves  then  actually 
heard  apostles?  This  is  distinctly  negatived  by  the  con- 
trast of  tense  (Tt  elirev  'AvSp€a<;  .  ,  .  rt  Xeyovaiv 
^Api(XTicov  Kal  'l(i)avvr]f;).  They  could  tell  what  the  Elders 
u'ere  saying,  and  what  the  ai)ostles  had  said.  Like  the 
Gospels  which  are  and  always  have  been  valued  both  for 
their  authors'  own  representations,  and  still  more  for  the 
"oracles  of  the  Lord"  which  they  embody,  were  the  "words 
of  the  Elders"  which  Papias  "subjoined  to  his  own  exposi- 
tions." These  words  concerned  themselves  with  "what  An- 
drew or  what  Peter  had  said,  or  what  Philip,  or  what  Thomas, 
or  James,  or  what  John,  or  Matthew  (for  Papias  w^as  con- 
cerned to  defend  the  Apocalypse  and  the  first  Gospel),  or 
any  other  of  the  Lord's  disciples";  and  in  so  far  as  in  at  least 
two  cases  the  testimonies  were  "living  and  abiding"  their 
rank  was  equivalent  to  that  of  the  Gospel  of  Mark. 

It  is  true  that  Papias  includes  both  elements  of  this  oral 
gospel  of  the  chance-comers— (o)  reports  of  apostles'  say- 
ings, and  {b)  teachings  of  their  own  immediate  followers — 
under  the  single  phrase  "words  of  the  Elders"  {dveKptvov 
Tois  \6yov<i  Twv  Trpea-^vrepcov),  which  led  those  of  later 
times,  ignorant  of  the  date  of  his  writing,  to  the  violence  of 
making  TrpeafivTepwv  in  11.  14-15  mean  apostles,  while  in  the 
adjacent  occurrences  it  was  admitted  to  mean  "disciples  of 
these."  But  if  the  corruption  of  text  in  1.  22  had  not  oc- 
curred, this  misunderstanding  would  have  been  impossible. 
I  have  tried  to  show  that  even  with  it  the  remaining  traces 
of  the  chronological  distinction  enable  all  who  will  separate 
the  fragment  from  the  prejudiced  ideas  of  its  later  reporters 
to  obtain  the  true  sense.  It  was  just  because  the  best  teachers 
in  Asia  could  not  report  sa\-c  from  books  (eV  rwv  ^t^Xicov) 


126  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

"what  Andrew,  or  Peter,  or  Philip,  or  Thomas,  or  James,  or 
John,  or  Matthew,  or  any  other  of  the  Lord's  disciples  had 
said"  that  Papias  was  obliged  in  his  pursuit  of  "the  living 
and  abiding  voice"  to  question  "those  who  came  his  way." 
Polycarp,  it  would  seem,  like  the  other  teachers  of  Asia  who 
"taught  the  truth,"  could  give  it  only  "from  books."  This 
we  should  naturally  infer  from  his  epistle.  Irena^us  cher- 
ished among  the  dearest  recollections  of  that  boyhood  time 
when  "what  boys  learn  growing  with  the  mind  becomes 
joined  to  it,"  how  Polycarp  in  public  discourse  had  related 
"his  intercourse  with  John  and  with  others  who  had  seen 
the  Lord,  and  their  words  as  he  remembered  them,  and 
what  he  heard  from  them  concerning  the  Lord,  and  concern- 
ing his  miracles  and  his  teaching."  Whether  Polycarp's 
acquaintance  with  those  who  "had  seen  the  Lord"  was 
really,  as  Irenaeus  maintains,  with  the  Apostle  John,  or  only 
with  the  Elders,  we  have  still  to  inquire. 


CHAPTER  V 

JOHN    IN    ASIA,    AND    THE    MARTYR    APOSTLES  * 

Before  proceeding  to  the  history  of  the  tradition  regarding 
John  the  Apostle  as  author  of  the  writings  emanating  from 
Asia  in  that  second  stage  which  is  marked  by  the  great 
controversies  in  Rome  as  to  the  number  of  authoritative 
gospels,  we  have  one  further  question  to  consider  from  the 
earlier  period  and  more  Hmited  stage  of  Asia.  The  Irena-an 
tradition  of  "apostles  and  elders"  in  Asia,  was,  as  we  have 
seen,  grossly  exaggerated  in  the  interest  of  the  effort  to  es- 
tablish a  fourfold  "evangelic  instrument"  from  "apostles." 
Poly  carp  was  its  chief  reliance,  next  to  the  misinterpreted  if 
not  corrupt  passage  from  Papias.  Was  it  then  so  greatly 
exaggerated  as  to  introduce  the  whole  sojourn  of  John  the 
Apostle  in  Asia  without  real  basis  in  fact  ? 

Two  principal  grounds  are  advanced  for  this  seemingly 
radical  skepticism  towards  Irenaus.  We  have  (i)  evidence 
from  reported  statements  of  Papias  and  from  other  sources 
tending  to  show  that  the  Apostle  John  died  a  martyr  at  the 
hands  of  the  Jews,  and  therefore  probably  in  Palestine,  quite 
too  early  for  the  intercourse  with  Polycarp  alleged  by  Irenaeus. 
(2)  We  have  also  an  extraordinary  coincidence  of  silence  in 
all  authorities  earlier  than  Irenieus  concerning  any  such 
sojourn  of  John  in  Asia,  many  of  these  authorities,  includ- 
ing Polycarp  himself,  having  the  strongest  motives  for  ad- 
vancing appeals  to  this  supreme  apostolic  authority  if  they 
could.    This  second,  or  negative,  line  of  evidence  falls  prop- 

1  In  part  reprinted  by  permission  from  the  Expositor.  Ser.  VII,  iv 
(1907). 

127 


128  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

eriy  to  be  considered  under  Part  II,  since  it  is  connected 
with  the  Roman  debate  of  160-220  a,  d.  originated,  as  we 
have  endeavored  to  show,  by  the  claims  of  the  Appendix  to 
the  Fourth  Gospel.  The  former,  or  positive  (i)  has  been 
very  drastically  presented  by  E.  Schwartz,^  whose  conclusions 
in  their  entirety,  including  even  the  date  44  a.  d.  for  the 
martyrdom  of  James  and  John,  are  regarded  by  so  eminent 
a  scholar  as  Wellhausen  as  "demonstrated."  Bousset  and 
others  have  argued  independently  for  the  martyrdom  on 
the  basis  of  the  Synoptic  "prophecy"  Mk.  10:35-40  = 
Mt.  20:20-23,  but  without  committing  themselves  to  the 
date  44  A.  D.,  when,  as  reported  in  Acts  12:  2,  "Herod  the 
king  (Agrippa  I)  killed  James  the  brother  of  John  with  the 
sword."  We  may  leave  to  Bousset,  Schwartz,  and  Well- 
hausen their  debate  with  Harnack  and  others  regarding  the 
value  of  the  two  reports  of  the  statement  in  Papias,  and  de- 
vote our  attention  primarily  to  the  side-lights  which  may  per- 
haps be  gained  by  closer  inspection  of  the  Synoptic  repre- 
sentation, as  well  as  from  a  glance  at  Hegesippus'  very  con- 
fused account  of  the  martyrdom  in  Jerusalem  ca.  62  A.  d. 
of  the  better  known  James,  "the  brother  of  the  Lord." 

The  gospel  writers  know  of  but  three  among  the  twelve 
who  suffered  martyrdom,  and  even  tradition,  which  busied 
itself  in  developing  the  later  career  of  each  apostle,  long 
hesitated  to  award  the  martyr's  crown  to  any  save  Peter 
and  James  and  John.  The  last-named  held  a  curiously 
vacillating  position  of  both  martyr  and  surviving  "witness 
(fidprv^)  of  Messiah."  He  drank  the  cup  of  Jesus  (accord- 
ing to  legend  a  cup  of  poison)  and  was  baptized  with  his 
baptism  of  death  (according  to  legend  immersion  in  boiling 
oil),  but  emerged  from  the  ordeal  unharmed,  to  continue  un- 
touched of  corruption  in  a  sleep  that  only  resembled  death 
until  the  coming  of  the  Lord.     The  legend  is  due  to  the 

1  Tod  der  Sohne  Zebedaei,  Berlin,  1904. 


THE  MARTYR  APOSTLES  129 

harmonistic  interweaving  in  later  faney  of  two  antithetic 
prophecies  of  Jesus,  one  to  the  disciples  at  the  Declaration 
of  Messiah's  Fate,  "Some  that  stand  by  shall  not  taste  of 
death  till  they  sec  the  Son  of  man  coming  in  his  kingdom";  ^ 
the  other  to  James  and  John,  as  they  ask  the  preeminent 
places  in  the  messianic  kingdom,  "Ye  shall  indeed  drink 
of  my  cup,  but  to  sit  at  my  right  and  left  hand  is  reserved 
for  them  that  are  worthy."  Peter  is  the  third,  who  had 
olTered  to  go  with  Jesus  to  prison  and  death;  but  broke  down 
in  the  attempt. 

Regarding  the  actual  fate  of  these  apostolic  volunteers  to 
martyrdom  only  one  is  reported  in  positive,  distinct  terms 
by  any  New  Testament  writer.  In  Acts  12  :if.  Luke  informs 
us  of  the  decapitation  of  James  by  Agrippa  I  early  in  the 
year  44  a.  d.  As  to  Peter's  fate,  while  the  tradition  is  early, 
and  apparently  trustworthy,  that  he  perished  at  Rome  by 
crucifixion  in  the  Neronian  persecution  of.  64  A.  d.,  the  only 
New  Testament  references  to  it  are  in  the  veiled  language 
of  symbolism.  The  Appendix  to  the  Fourth  Gospel,  bal- 
ancing the  respective  claims  of  the  apostle  to  whom  leader- 
ship over  the  flock  of  Christ  is  committed,  and  the  "other 
disciple"  whose  task  it  is  to  "witness"  until  the  Lord  come, 
shows  already  the  traces  of  the  harmonization  of  the  two 
antithetic  prophecies  already  referred  to,  in  appHcation  to 
John.     Peter,  who  had  been  told  when  first  he  volunteered 

1  Mt.  16:28  =  Mk.  9:1  =  Lk.  9:27.  As  an  actual  promise  of  Jesus  the  pas- 
sage is  not  only  supported  by  this  strong  array  but  by  the  kindred  saying 
Mt.  24:34  =  Mk.  i3:3o=Lk.  21:32,  and  by  the  conviction  of  the  whole 
primitive  Church,  attested  by  Paul  in  numerous  well-known  passages,  that 
the  second  advent  was  to  come  "quickly,"  while  some  of  them  "were  alive 
and  remained."  The  unique  phrase  "taste  of  death"  is  an  indication  that 
Jesus  has  in  mind  the  expected  "witnesses  of  Messiah,"  Moses  (or  Enoch) 
and  Elias,  who  in  Jewish  Apocalypse  (II  Esdr.  6:26)  attend  the  coming  of 
Messiah  as  "the  men  that  were  taken  up,  that  have  not  tasted  death  from 
their  birth."  The  meaning  seems  to  be  repeated  in  the  Lukan  assurance 
(Acts  i:  8),  "  Ye  are  my  witnesses." 
Fourth  Gospel — 9 


I30  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

to  lay  down  his  life  for  Jesus,  "Thou  canst  not  follow  me 
now,  but  thou  shalt  follow  afterwards"  (Jn.  13:36)/  is 
told  now,  "When  thou  wast  young  thou  girdedst  thyself,  and 
walkedst  whither  thou  wouldest;  but  when  thou  shalt  be 
old,  thou  shalt  stretch  forth  thy  hands,  and  another  shall  gird 
thee,^  and  carry  thee  whither  thou  wouldest  not."  The  au- 
thor adds  that  Jesus  "spake  this  signifying  by  what  manner 
of  death  Peter  should  glorify  God,"  and  then  significantly 
adds  that  "when  Jesus  had  spoken  this  he  saith  unto  him, 
Follow  me." 

This  account  leaves  little  doubt  in  the  mind  of  the  reader 
accustomed  to  the  symbolism  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  that  an 
allusion  is  intended  to  the  time,  and  even  the  manner,  in 
which  Peter's  too  self-confident  offer,  "Lord,  why  cannot  I 
follow  thee  even  now?  I  will  lay  down  my  life  for  thee" 
was  to  find  at  last  its  worthy  fulfilment. 

But  while  the  symbolic  veil  is  less  transparent,  there  is 
one  other  gospel  fragment  which  seems  to  the  present  writer 
scarcely  less  certainly  concerned  with  the  same  over-confident 
offer  of  Peter  to  "follow,"  redeemed,  after  a  first  humihat- 
ing  failure,  by  an  ultimately  victorious  faith.  It  forms  an 
appendix  in  Mt.  14:28-32  to  the  Markan  story  of  Jesus' 
Walking  on  the  Sea.  This  narrative  itself  is  suggestive  of 
symbolism,  from  its  connection  with  the  Feeding  of  the  Mul- 
titude, wherein  the  fourth  evangelist  rightly  finds  a  type  of 
the  Agape  with  its  memorializing  (in  the  appended  eucharist) 

1  The  relation  of  this  passage  to  that  of  the  Appendix  is  one  of  several 
proofs  that  the  process  of  final  editing  which  sent  forth  this  Gospel  to  the 
churches  was  not  limited  to  the  mere  attachment  of  a  postscript,  but  laid 
hold  also  of  the  substance.  See  below,  Ch.  XVIII,  and  my  I ntrod.  toN.  T., 
1900,  p.  274. 

2  In  the  Orient  old  men  are  girded  by  standing  up,  stretching  out  the 
hands  and  revolving  the  body,  thus  winding  around  the  waist  the  long 
sash  or  girdle,  whereof  one  end  is  held  by  an  attendant.  Young  men  gird 
themselves. 


THE  MARTYR  APOSTLES  131 

of  the  Lord's  death  (Jn.  6:52-58).  Jesus  by  his  death  had 
been  separated  from  the  disciples,  leaving  them  to  battle 
alone  against  the  elements  of  the  world,  yet  left  them  not 
alone,  but  triumphing  over  all  the  waves  and  billows  of 
death  which  had  gone  over  him,  came  to  them,  cheered  them 
and  piloted  their  craft  to  its  desired  haven.  For  those  to 
whom  triumph  over  the  sea-monster  was  a  favorite  symbol 
for  Jesus'  victory  over  the  power  of  death  and  the  under- 
world,^ and  his  rebuke  of  the  storm  which  threatened  the 
boat-load  of  disciples  on  Gennesaret  one  of  the  proofs  of  his 
messianic  power,  such  a  combination  in  the  symbolism  of  sac- 
ramental teaching  is  not  difficult  to  conceive.' 

Whether  or  not  this  be  the  case  with  Mk.  6:45-52,  which 
the  evangeUst  declares  to  have  been  a  sign  misunderstood 
at  the  time  by  the  disciples  because  "their  heart  was  hard- 
ened," Matthew's  addition  to  the  story  is  highly  suggestive 
of  symboUc  intent.  When  Peter  saw  Jesus  treading  the  bil- 
lows under  foot  he  entreated: 

"Lord,  if  it  be  thou,  bid  me  come  unto  thee  upon  the  wa- 
ters. .  .  .But  when  he  saw  the  wind  he  was  afraid;  and  be- 
ginning to  sink,  he  cried  out,  saying,  Lord,  save  me.  And  immedi- 
ately Jesus  stretched  forth  his  hand  and  took  hold  of  him,  and 
saith  unto  him,  O  thou  of  little  faith,  wherefore  didst  thou  doubt  ?  " 

We  have  little  difficulty  in  recognizing  in  the  legend  of 
Domine,  quo  vadis?  a  variation  on  this  same  theme  of 
Peter's  denial  and  recovery.  It  is  certainly  conceivable 
that  this  representation  of  Peter's  ultimately  successful  at- 
tempt to  share  in  Jesus'  triumph  over  the  powers  of  the 
under-world  should  have  been  promoted  by  a  fate  which  re- 
deemed his  promise  to  "  follow  unto  prison  and  death," 
though  the  primary  reference  is  to  his  "  turning  again." 

1  Cf   Mt.  12:40,  and  Jona,  H.  Schmidt,  1907. 

2  For  an  instance  of  the  kind  very  fully  elaborated  see  the  Epistle  of 
Clement  to  James  (prefixed  to  the  Clementine  Homilies),  xiv. 


132  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

To  the  practically  certain  allusion  in  Jn.  13 :36-38;  21  :i8  f. 
we  may,  therefore,  join  Mt.  14:  28-32  as  a  possible  second  al- 
lusion within  the  limits  of  the  gospels,  though  only  in  their 
latest  elements,  to  the  martyrdom  of  Peter.  It  remains  to 
be  seen  whether  further  traces  may  not  be  discoverable  of 
other  apostolic  martyrdoms. 

An  increasing  number  of  critics,  beginning  with  the  in- 
dependent conclusions  of  Boussct  and  Wellhausen,  are  con- 
vinced that  the  "prophecy"  to  the  two  sons  of  Zebedee, 
"Ye  shall  indeed  drink  of  my  cup,"  could  not  have  obtained 
its  place  in  Mk.  io:39  =  Mt.  20:23,  ^^^  then  maintained  it 
unaltered  until  the  stereotyping  of  the  tradition,  unless  the 
prophecy  had  actually  met  fulfilment.  These  critics  are 
therefore  disposed  to  accept  as  genuine  and  historical  the 
fragment  of  Papias  recently  pubhshed  by  de  Boor  ^  in  which 
this  writer  of  about  150  a.  d.  declares  that  "John  and  James 
his  brother  were  killed  by  the  Jews,"  to  which  an  interpo- 
lator of  the  Codex  Coislinianus  adds,  "thus  fulfilUng  the 
prophecy  of  Jesus  concerning  them."  Zahn  ^  vainly  endeav- 
ors to  show  why  it  is  impossible  that  Papias — who  un- 
doubtedly regarded  the  Apostle  John  as  "in  some  sense  re- 
sponsible for  the  Apocalypse"^ — can  really  have  indorsed 
this  tradition.  No  reason  exists  why  Papias  may  not  have 
referred  this  somewhat  indefinite  htcrary  activity  of  the 
apostle — or,  for  that  matter  the  authorship  of  the  whole 
"  Johannine"  canon — to  a  period  antecedent  to  this  martyr- 
dom. The  Muratorianum,  if  it  does  not  actually  rest  upon 
Papias,  is  at  least  as  open  as  Papias  to  all  these  objections 
of  incompatibihty  with  the  later  tradition  of  John's  survi\al 
to  the  times  of  Trajan.  And  the  Muratorianum  represents 
John's  authorship  of  Revelation  as  antecedent  to  the  PauHne 

1  Texte  u.  Untersuchungen,  V,  2,  p.  170. 

2  Forschungen,  VI,  pp.  147  ff. 

3  Fragments  x  and  xi  in  The  Apostolic  Fathers,  Lightfoot-Harmer,  1S91. 


THE  MARTYR  APOSTLES  133 

Epistles!  As  for  the  argument  tliat  later  readers  of  Papias 
could  not  then  have  accepted  the  tradition  of  the  aged  sur- 
vivor of  the  apostolic  band,  it  is  enough  to  observe  that  the 
two  writers  who  actually  do  quote  the  statement  of  Papias  are 
able  to  reconcile  it  with  the  accepted  belief,  and  that  those 
who  could  not  (such  as  Eusebius)  have  simply  ignored  it, 
doubtless  classing  it  with  the  fivOtKioTepa  which  Eusebius 
claims  to  find  in  his  pages. 

Until  some  valid  reason  is  advanced,  therefore,  why  this 
doubly  attested  statement  of  the  martyrdom  of  James  and 
John  may  not  have  stood  on  the  pages  of  Papias,  writing 
ca.  150,  it  must  be  accepted  as  the  simple  historical  fact, 
in  perfect  harmony  with  the  "prophecy"  it  was  adduced  to 
confirm.^  W'liat  must  be  explained  is  its  displacement  by 
the  subsequently  dominant  tradition  of  the  survival  of  John, 
the  earliest  attestation  of  this  tradition  being  found  again  in 
the  Appendix  to  the  Fourth  Gospel  (Jn.  21 :  23). 

But  it  is  not  the  whole  truth  to  say  that  a  tradition  iden- 
tifying the  surviving  "witness  of  Messiah"  of  ]\Ik.  9:1  with 
John  the  son  of  Zebedee  is  attested  by  the  apologetic  of 
John  21 :  23.  The  author  does  indeed  undertake  to  vindicate 
for  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved"  a  "white  martyrdom" 
in  contrast  to  the  "red  martyrdom"  of  Peter.  He  goes 
further.  He  undertakes  a  vindication  of  this  form  of  the 
tradition  against  the  objection  that  the  witness  had  died — 
or  at  least  might  be  expected  to  die.  Not  merely  that  the 
word  of  Jesus  had  been  conditionally  spoken,  but  also  that 
the  disciple's  "witness"  does  in  fact  continue  in  the  same 
way  as  the  witness  of  Moses  and  the  prophets  appealed  to  in 
5:39.  "This  is  the  disciple  that  beareth  witness  to  these 
things   (o  fiaprvpSv  irepl  tovtcov)  and  wrote  these  things." 

1  We  have,  in  addition  to  the  twice  reported  statement  of  Papias,  the 
dates  appointed  in  ancient  martyrologies  which  fix  for  Stephen  Decem- 
ber 26,  for  James  and  John  December  27. 


134  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

The  paragraph,  therefore,  should  be  closed  after  verse  24, 
not  after  verse  23.  This  is  part  of  the  truth  concerning  this 
author's  dealing  with  the  tradition  of  the  fiapTvpia  of  John. 
The  other  part,  unfortunately  ignored  in  current  discussions 
of  the  Appendix,  is  that  it  also  deals  (in  the  lightest  touch 
of  symbolism  to  be  sure,  but  no  less  surely)  with  the  other 
form  of  the  tradition:  John  a  sharer  0}  Jesus'  cup  of  mar- 
tyrdom. The  author  does  not  lightly  use  the  term  "follow" 
in  this  connection.  All  possible  literary  art  is  used  in  verse  19 
to  indicate  its  pregnancy  of  meaning.  If,  therefore,  he  tells 
us  immediately  after  (verse  20)  that  "Peter,  turning  about, 
seeth  the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved  following,"  and  then 
that  Peter  asked  the  question  when  he  saw  John  "follow- 
ing," what  then  John's  fate  would  be  {Kupte,  ovTo<i  Be  rt;),^ 
the  ambiguity  of  the  answer  which  Jesus  returns  is  delib- 
erately designed  to  cover  both  forms  of  the  tradition.  The 
writer  intends  to  meet  the  contention  of  both  parties.  Some 
had  thought  John's  fiaprvpia  was  to  be  a  "following"  in  the 
same  sense  in  which  Peter  finally  "followed"  Jesus.  Others 
had  thought  it  was  to  be  that  of  the  survivor  of  "those  that 
stood  by"  when  Jesus  declared  that  that  generation  should 
not  pass  till  the  judgment  came,  a  tarrying  "without  tasting 
of  death"  until  the  Lord  came,  in  the  sense  of  "the  wit- 
nesses of  Messiah"  of  II  Esdras  6:26.^  A  "tarrying"  or  a 
"following"  witness — which  had  Jesus  predicted  for  John? 

1  The  rendering  "What  shall  this  man  do?"  does  not  convey  the  sense. 
The  meaning  is,  By  what  manner  of  "  witness  "  shall  this  man  (emphatic 
oiiTos)  glorify  God? 

2  "Whosoever  remaineth  .  .  .  shall  see  my  salvation  and  the  end  of 
my  world.  And  they  shall  behold  the  men  that  have  been  taken  up  (Moses — ■ 
according  to  other  authorities  Enoch — and  Elijah),  who  have  not  tasted 
death  from  their  birth." 

On  the  current  apocalyptic  conception  of  the  "witnesses  of  Messiah,"  the 
"sons  of  oil"  that  "stand  in  the  presence  of  the  Lord  of  the  whole  earth" 
as  his  "remembrancers"  of  the  need  of  Zion,  see  Bousset,  Legend  of  Anti- 
christ, the  chapter  on  this  subject,  and  Rev.  11:3-13. 


THE  MARTYR  APOSTLES  135 

The  Evangelist's  answer  to  this  question  is:  It  cannot  be 
known  whether  Jesus  predicted  one  fate  or  the  other  for 
John.  One  thing  is  important.  As  Peter  was  given  the 
function  of  administrative  care  (as  moderns  might  say,  the 
ruling  eldership)  John  was  given  that  of  interpretation  of  the 
truth  (the  teaching  eldership).  Whatever  the  form  of  his 
visible  fxaprvpia,  whether  by  life  or  by  death,  his  enduring 
"witness"  to  the  Lord  is  that  he  "is  a  witness  of  these  things 
and  wrote  these  things."  The  pertinence  of  the  Appendix 
as  a  commendation  of  the  evangeHc  writing  which  it  accom- 
panies resides,  accordingly,  in  this  j)aragraph  Jn.  21  :i5-24  ^ 
treated  as  a  whole.  The  writer  takes  account  of  botii  forms 
of  the  earUcr  tradition  of  the  fMaprvpia  of  John,  and  substi- 
tutes for  them  his  own,  along  with  the  book  whose  "truth" 
he  guarantees. 

It  is  doubtful  if  the  New  Testament  contains  other  allu- 
sions to  the  p-apTvpia  of  James  and  John,  yet  before  we  con- 
front the  problem  why  the  tradition  interpreting  it  in  John's 
case  in  the  sense  of  the  tarrying  witness  (Mk.  9:1)  should 
have  ultimately  superseded  that  which  interpreted  it  in  the 
sense  of  the  following  witness  (Mk.  10:39),  we  must  take 
into  account  two  more  possible  traces.  The  former  may  be 
dismissed  briefly,  since  its  value  is  wholly  dependent  on  our 
judgment  regarding  the  difficult  question  of  the  composite 
structure  of  Revelation. 

(i)  In  substantially  its  present  form  the  Apocalypse  of 
John  is  a  product  of  "the  end  of  the  reign  of  Domitian," 
as  even  Irenaeus  was  already  aware.  It  seems  to  have  in- 
cluded the  portions  which  claim  Johannine  authorship  at 
least  from  before  155  a.  d.,  when  Justin  already  cjuotes  it 
as  the  work  of  this  apostle.  Whether  the  imputation  to 
John  is  older  than  the  introductions  and  epilogues  which 

1  Verse  25  is  not  found  in  K*,  and  should  be  canceled  as  a  later  addition. 
Tischendorf's  text  rejects  it. 


136  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

seem  to  have  been  added  "in  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Domi- 
tian"  would  be  difficuh  to  say.  For,  as  practically  all  re- 
cent critics  admit,  an  older  element  borrowed  from  Jewish 
apocalypse  has  been  incorporated  at  least  in  the  section 
dealing  with  the  two  "witnesses  of  ^Icssiah"  in  11:1-13. 
That  these  "witnesses"  were  originally  ]Moses  and  EUas  is 
quite  apparent  from  the  description  of  their  miraculous  en- 
dowments in  verse  6.^  Their  prophecy  follows  upon  the 
voice  of  the  seven  thunders  (Rev.  10)  which  the  seer  is  for- 
bidden to  write  and  commanded  to  "seal  up."  In  a  measure 
it  takes  the  place  of  these  thunders,  the  witnesses  themselves 
having  both  of  them  the  Elijan  weapon  of  fire  from  heaven, 
so  that  "if  any  man  shall  desire  to  hurt  them  fire  proceedeth 
out  of  their  mouth  and  devoureth  their  enemies."  Never- 
theless, "when  they  shall  have  finished  their  testimony"  the 
beast  from  the  abyss  puts  them  to  death.  This,  too,  as  we 
learn  from  Alk.  9:13,  is  a  genuine  element  of  the  old  apoca- 
lyptic legend  'of  Elias.  A  vi^•id  trait  is  the  fact  that  their 
dead  bodies  are  suffered  to  He  exposed  "in  the  street  of  the 
great  city."  Finally,  after  the  symbohc  period  of  the  half 
of  seven  da  vs. 

"The  breath  of  life  from  God  entered  into  them,  and  they  stood 
upon  their  feet,  and  great  fear  fell  upon  them  which  beheld  them. 
And  they  heard  a  great  voice  from  heaven  saying  unto  them, 
Come  up  hither.    And  they  went  up  into  heaven  in  the  cloud," 

after  the  likeness  of  the  ascension  of  Jesus. 

The  occidental  reader  would  probably  have  some  diffi- 
culty in  guessing  that  "the  great  city"  in  whose  streets  the 
bodies  of  the  two  witnesses  lie  unburied  is  Jerusalem  (!), 
were  it  not  for  the  friendly  editorial  hand  which  inserts  the 

1  "  These  have  the  power  to  shut  the  heaven  that  it  rain  not  during  the 
days  of  their  prophecy  (Elias);  and  they  have  power  over  the  waters  to  turn 
them  into  blood,  and  to  smite  the  earth  with  every  plague,  as  often  as  they 
shall  desire  CMoses)." 


THE  MARTYR  APOSTLES  137 

explanation  "that  which  spiritually  is  called  Sodom  and 
Egypt,  where  their  Lord  also  was  crucified."  But  whom 
docs  the  incorporator  of  this  bit  of  a[)ocalypse  mean  by  "the 
two  witnesses"  ?  For  it  is  somewhat  dillicult  to  imagine  him, 
as  a  Christian,  thinking  of  Moses'  and  Elias'  return  other- 
wise than  in  some  Christian  embodiment,  as  John  the  Baj)- 
tist  in  the  Synoptic  writers  is  treated  as  a  reincarnation  of 
Elias.  Es])ecially  difficult  is  it  when  their  martyrdom  is 
brought  into  express  relation  with  that  of  Jesus  as  "their 
Lord"  (!),  and  their  resurrection  and  ascension  are  depicted 
in  obvious  relation  to  that  of  Jesus. 

If  the  question  were  asked  of  Justin  ]\Iartyr,  we  could 
answer  it  at  once.  The  "witness  of  Messiah,"  who  comes 
again  in  the  guise  of  Elias  to  etTect  the  "great  repentance" 
before  the  great  and  terrible  day  of  the  Lord  (r/.  Rev.  11  :i3) 
is  John  the  Baptist  rcdivivus: 

"Shall  we  not  suppose  that  the  word  of  God  has  proclaimed 
that  Elijah  shall  be  the  precursor  of  the  great  and  terrible  Day, 
that  is,  of  his  (Jesus')  second  advent?  'Certainly,'  he  (Trypho 
the  Jew)  answered.  'Well,  then,  our  Lord  in  his  teaching,'  I 
continued,  'proclaimed  that  this  very  thing  would  take  place,' 
saying  that  Elijah  would  also  come.  And  we  know  that  this  shall 
take  place  when  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  shall  come  in  glory  from 
heaven;  whose  first  manifestation  the  Spirit  of  God,  which  was  in 
Elijah,  preceded  as  herald  in  the  person  of  John,  a  prophet  among 
your  nation."  ^ 

But  the  apocalyptist  has  not  yet  reduced  the  "two  wit- 
nesses" to  one;  and  he  gives  no  indication  that  he  has  in 
mind  the  Baptist.  On  the  contrary,  he  seems  to  be  think- 
ing of  two  martyrs  of  Jesus,  whose  fate  provokes  the  bit- 
terest resentment  in  his  mind  against  "the  great  city  which 
s])iritually  is  called  Sodom,  and  Egypt,  where  their  Lord  too 
was  crucified."     For  the  stereotyped  ajjocalyi^tic  feature  of 

1  See  the  instructive  context  in  Dial.,  xlix. 


138  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

the  "great  repentance"  almost  disappears  from  view  in  his 
elaboration  of  the  vengeance  inflicted  on  the  guilty  city 
through  the  earthquake,  wherein  a  tenth  part  of  the  city  is 
destroyed  and  seven  thousand  persons  are  killed  (verse  13; 
c}.  the  earthquake  of  Mt.  27:51-53).  Where  hot  indigna- 
tion flames  out  as  here  there  must  be  something  more  than 
scholastic  borrowing  of  dead  material. 

The  pages  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  which  reflect  the 
popular  apocalyptic  conceptions  of  the  coming  of  EUas  as 
witness  of  Messiah,  as  martyr,  as  raised  from  the  dead,  and 
perhaps  (in  Christian  form)  as  avenger  of  Messiah's  wrongs, 
are  those  to  which  we  must  look  for  light  on  the  question 
what  personalities,  if  any,  the  incorporator  of  Rev.  11:1-13 
has  in  mind.  In  Matthew  and  Mark,  John  the  Baptist 
appears  as  Elias,  who  anoints  the  Messiah  and  makes  him 
known  to  himself  and  the  people.^  The  idea  that  his  mar- 
tyrdom was  in  fulfilment  of  (apocryphal)  prophecy  is  ad- 
mitted,^ and  we  have  traces  of  its  companion  elements,^ 
the  miracles  which  are  supposed  to  "work  in  him"  because 
he  is  risen  from  the  dead  (Mk.  6:14),  and  his  coming  again 
before  the  end  (15:35  f.)-  But  the  last  two  conceptions  are 
only  alluded  to,  not  admitted  by,  the  evangelist.  The  Bap- 
tist's function  is  complete,  in  Mark's  idea,  at  his  death. 
On  the  other  hand,  Moses  and  Ehas  are  certainly  introduced 

1  For  the  Jewish  tradition  on  this  point  see  Justin  Martyr,  Dial.,  viii  and 
xlix. 

2  Mk.  9:13.  The  only  other  trace  of  this  in  pre-Christian  legend  is  in 
the  Slavonic  Book  of  Biblical  Antiquities  attributed  to  Philo,  where  Elias 
redivivus  in  the  person  of  Phineas  is  put  to  death  by  the  tyrant. 

3  The  apocalyptic  developments  of  the  doctrine  of  the  "witnesses"  are 
fond  of  introducing  the  trait  of  the  duel  of  wonders  in  which  the  true  wit- 
ness(es)  withstand  and  outdo  the  wonders  of  the  false  prophet(s)  in  the 
presence  of  the  tyrant;  as  Moses  and  Aaron  withstood  Jannes  and  Jambres 
in  the  presence  of  Pharaoh.  The  great  repentance  ensues  upon  the  final 
victory  of  the  witnesses  in  raising  the  dead.  Cf.  Bousset,  Legend  of  Antichrist 
and  the  Clementine  duel  of  Peter  (and  Paul)  against  Simon  Magus. 


THE  MARTYR  APOSTLES  139 

as  witnesses  of  Messiah  in  the  remarkable  scene  of  the 
Transfiguration;  only  their  function  is  obscure.  It  is  not 
clear  whether  their  appearance  in  "the  vision"  witnessed 
by  the  three  disciples  is  prophetic  of  the  glory  that  is  to  be 
by-and-by,  or  whether  it  is  an  uncovering  to  their  minds  of 
the  present  hidden  reality.    Perhaps  both.^ 

In  Luke  the  crudity  of  the  Markan  apocalyptic  ideas  is 
much  modified.  The  Baptist  was  from  his  birth  a  fore- 
runner "in  the  spirit  and  power  of  Elijah"  (1:17,  76-79; 
7:27),  but  the  direct  identification  with  EHas  (Mt.  11:14), 
the  statement  that  "scripture"  had  been  fulfilled  in  his 
martyrdom,  and  the  cry  from  the  cross,  are  omitted.  The 
allusions  to  popular  expectations  of  the  resurrection  of  EHas 
and  his  mighty  works  are  also  almost  completely  suppressed. 
"Moses  and  EHas"  still  appear  in  the  Transfiguration  to 
predict  the  cmcifixion  (9:31;  cj.  24:25-27);  but  instead  of 
coming  again  from  the  dead  to  effect  the  great  repentance, 
Israel  is  forewarned  in  a  special  appendix  to  the  parable  of 
the  Rich  Man  and  Lazarus  (16:26-31)  that  if  they  do  not 
accept  the  written  witness  of  Moses  and  the  prophets  the 
return  from  the  dead  would  be  useless. 

How  radically  the  Fourth  Gospel  treats  the  identification 
of  the  Baptist  with  Elias,  his  witness  and  his  mighty  works 
(Jn.  1:19-28;  10:41)  need  here  only  be  mentioned.  To 
this  evangelist  as  well  as  to  Luke  it  is  only  in  their  writings 
that  Moses  and  Elias  are  the  witnesses  of  Messiah  (Jn.  5: 

33-47)-' 

But  in  the  deep-lying  material  incorporated  by  both  Mark 

and  Luke  there  are  certain  suggestions  which  cannot  well  be 

overlooked  when  the  question  is  put,  Whom,  if  any  one, 

1  For  the  Markan  conception  in  general  see  the  passages  commented  on 
in  my  Beginnings  of  Gospel  Story,  Yale  University  Press,  1909. 

-  The  Baptist,  however,  was  "the  lamp"  (oXi^x^s,  John  5:35;  cf.  at  8vo 
\vx''ia.i,  Rev.  11:4)  granted  as  a  concession  to  human  weakness. 


I40  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

had  the  apocalyptist  in  mind  when  he  incorporated  the  para- 
graph on  the  martyred  "witnesses"? 

Aside  from  the  prophecy  to  the  sons  of  Zebedee,  "Ye 
shall  indeed  drink  my  cup,"  significantly  omitted  by  Luke 
(!),  the  Synoptic  Gospels  contain  but  two  references  to  the 
brothers  James  and  John  taken  by  themselves.  The  first  is 
Mk.  3:17,  where  we  learn  that  they  bore  together  the  Ara- 
maic surname  Boanerges.  What  the  real  meaning  of  the 
epithet  may  have  been  is  obscure;  even  the  meaning  Mark 
attached  to  it  is  almost  equally  obscure,  for  while  the  words 
"sons  of  thunder"  by  which  he  renders  the  surname  are 
plain  enough,  no  feature  of  the  life  or  character  of  the  brothers 
is  given  to  show  in  what  sense  the  epithet  was  meant. 

The  only  other  New  Testament  passage  where  the  pair 
are  mentioned  by  themselves  is  Lk.  9:51-56;  and  here  the 
textual  variants,  even  if  unauthentic,  are  of  sufficient  in- 
terpretative value  to  be  worthy  of  incorporation  (in  [  ])  with 
the  text: 

"  And  it  came  to  pass  when  the  days  were  well-nigh  come  that  he 
should  be  received  up,  he  steadfastly  set  his  face  to  go  to  Jerusa- 
lem, and  sent  messengers  before  his  face;  and  they  went  and  entered 
into  a  village  of  the  Samaritans  to  make  ready  for  him.  And  they 
did  not  receive  him  because  his  face  was  (set  as)  going  to  Jerusalem. 
And  when  his  disciples  James  and  John  saw  (this),  they  said, 
Lord,  wilt  thou  that  we  bid  fire  to  come  down  from  heaven  and 
consume  them  [as  Elijah  did]?  But  he  turned  and  rebuked  them 
[and  said.  Ye  know  not  what  manner  of  spirit  ye  are  of.  [For  the 
Son  of  man  came  not  to  destroy  men's  lives  but  to  save  them]  ].^ 
And  they  went  to  another  village." 

To  the  evangelist  at  least  the  spirit  rebuked  is  not  so  much 
that  of  the  historical  Elijah,  which  it  would  not  have  oc- 
curred to  any  of  our  gospel  writers  to  question;  but  (unless 

1  The  clause  in  double  [  ]  is  found  in  still  fewer  authorities  than  that  which 
precedes  it.      ^ 


THE  MARTYR  APOSTLES  141 

\vc  greatly  err)  he  sees  rebuked  in  it  the  vindictive  sj^irit  of 
Rev.  11:1-13,  ^  spirit  which  rejoices  in  the  fire  proceeding 
out  of  the  mouth  of  the  two  witnesses  and  devouring  their 
enemies  "as  EHjah  did"  (11  Kings  1:12),  a  spirit  only  too 
glad  that  "if  any  man  desireth  to  hurt  them,  in  this  manner 
must  he  be  killed."  But  if  the  narrative  have  really  this  aim 
in  \iew,  we  ha\e  here  a  clue  to  the  long-vexed  problem  of 
the  epithet  "Sons  of  Thunder,"  It  was  applied  to  James 
and  John  not  so  much  for  w'hat  they  had  done,  as  for  what 
they  were  expected  to  do.  Revelation  11:1-13,  with  its  lurid 
substitute  for  the  unuttcrcd  "voice  of  the  seven  thunders," 
is  a  cry  from  the  tortured  spirit  of  the  Church,  driven  out  in 
64-67  A.  D.  from  "the  city  which  spiritually  is  called  Sodom 
and  Egypt,"  after  its  chief  "pillars"  James  the  Just  (and 
may  we  now  conjecturally  add,  John  the  son  of  Zebedec?) 
had  been  stoned  and  beaten  to  death  in  its  streets,  "where 
their  Lord  too  was  crucified."  Under  the  ancient  apocalyp- 
tic figure  the  vision  depicts  the  work  of  vengeance  which  is 
to  be  wrought  by  the  fidprvpe^  of  jMessiah  in  the  day  when 
he  comes  to  judgment  against  the  guilty  city.  As  in  Justin 
John  the  Baptist-Elias  renews  his  work  of  preparing  the 
way  of  the  Lord  at  the  second  advent,  so  here  the  Sons  of 
Thunder  come  before  him  to  judgment,  with  fire  to  destroy 
their  enemies.^  A  great  earthquake  destroys  a  tenth  part  of 
the  bloodstained  city,  and  seven  thousand  perish  of  those 
that  had  made  merry  over  the  dead  bodies  of  the  prophets." 
But  in  our  Gospels  another  spirit  has  displaced  the  vin- 
dictive spirit  of  the  earlier  parts  of  Revelation.  The  cry 
from  the  cross  is  no  longer  an  appeal  to  Elias  to  come  and 

1  Early  Christian  legend  attributes  metastasis  (ascension  to  heaven)  to 
both  James  (the  Lord's  brother)  and  John. 

2  Cf.  the  cry  of  the  souls  of  the  martyrs  from  under  the  altar,  Rev.  6:9  f., 
"How  long,  O  Master,  dost  thou  not  judge  and  avenge  our  blood?"  and 
its  answer. 


142  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

take  him  down,  but  a  wail  over  the  departing  presence  of 
God.  The  last  remnant  of  the  spirit  of  Rev.  ii :  1-13,  if  the 
title  "Sons  of  Thunder"  be  really  such,  remains  a  meaning- 
less survival  in  Mark.  Thereafter  it  disappears.  And  in 
its  place  comes  in  the  Lukan  story  of  the  rebuke  to  James 
and  John,  "Ye  know  not  what  manner  of  spirit  ye  are  of."  ^ 

(2)  One  more  trace  seems  to  us  to  be  distinguishable  in 
the  Synoptic  Gospels  of  the  period  when  James  and  John, 
together  with  Peter,  Rome's  "following"  witness  ("car- 
ried away  whither  he  would  not")  were  the  three  martyr- 
apostles.  Like  the  two  sons  of  Zebedee,  the  trio,  "Peter 
and  James  and  John"  are  mentioned  in  but  three  funda- 
mental passages  by  our  second  evangelist,  from  whose  pages 
the  group  has  generally  been  transferred  intact  to  those 
of  Matthew  and  Luke.^  Mark  represents  Jesus  in  these 
three  instances  as  admitting  only  "Peter  and  James  and 
John"  to  a  peculiarly  intimate  relationship  with  himself. 
Not  even  Andrew,  who  forms  one  of  the  group  of  four  at  the 
calling  of  the  first  followers  (Mk.  1:16-20)  and  the  predic- 
tion of  the  doom  of  Jerusalem  (Mk.  13 13),  is  here  admitted. 

It  is  conceivable  that  the  phenomenon  might  have  its  ex- 
planation in  the  subsequent  importance  to  the  Jerusalem 
church  of  "James  and  Cephas  and  John,  those  who  were 
regarded  as  pillars"  (Gal.  2:9),  anachronistically  referred 

1  If  the  argumentum  e  silentio  is  not  to  be  excluded,  we  should  take  also 
into  account  the  strange  phenomenon  that  the  fourth  evangelist,  who  treats 
Synoptic  eschatology  so  radically,  in  particular  the  doctrine  of  the  coming  of 
Elias,  has  stricken  from  his  pages  all  mention  whatever  of  either  of  the  sons 
of  Zebedee!  In  their  place  comes  in  the  new  and  mysterious  figure  of  "the 
disciple  whom  Jesus  loved."    On  this  see  Ch.  XII. 

2  Matthew  disregards  the  selection  of  the  three  in  the  story  of  the  raising 
of  Jairus'  daughter.  Luke,  after  introducing  the  group  in  the  Markan  form 
at  the  beginning  of  the  Transfiguration  story,  refers  to  them  in  the  addition 
which  he  makes  (Lk.  9:32)  only  as  "Peter  and  they  that  were  with  him" 
(c/.  13:  45).  Hence  the  trio  appears  to  be  of  primary  significance  to  Mark 
only. 


THE  MARTYR  APOSTLES  143 

to  the  earlier  time.  To  the  present  writer  this  explanation 
would  seem  more  probable  than  the  current  one  of  some 
special  predilection  of  Jesus  for  just  these  three.  But  one 
difficulty — perhaps  not  insuperable  ^ — is  the  fact  that  the 
James  who  became  the  "pillar"  is  not  the  same  as  the  inti- 
mate of  the  Gospel  of  Mark.  A  more  serious  objection  to 
this  theory  is  that  it  leaves  unexplained  the  special  nature 
of  the  three  occasions  in  which  only  the  trio  are  admitted. 
It  cannot  be  mere  accident  that  all  are  connected  with  the 
same  supremely  important  theme:  "Christ  and  the  power 
of  his  resurrection."  The  three  occasions  are  the  Raising 
of  Jairus'  Daughter,  the  Transfiguration,  and  the  Agony  in 
Gethsemane.  It  may  fairly  be  assumed  that  to  our  evange- 
list, as  to  the  writer  of  Jn.  21  :i8  f.,  Peter  was  one  who  had 
"followed"  Jesus  in  almost  literal  repetition  of  his  sufferings. 
Mark  10:39  shows  that  he  looked  upon  James  and  John  as 
destined  to  fulfil,  if  not  as  having  already  fulfilled,  the 
prophecy  of  the  Lord  that  they  should  "drink  his  cup." 
From  this  point  of  view  it  will  no  longer  seem  strange  that 
in  a  gospel  wherein  Jesus'  pedagogic  relation  to  the  twelve  is 
more  prominent  than  in  any  other,^  Peter  and  James  and 
John  should  be  made  the  confidants  of  his  wrcstHng  with 
"him  that  had  the  power  of  death." 

The  facts  we  have  presented  are  collected  as  indications 
that  the  New  Testament  itself  contains  confirmation  of  the 
strange  new  testimony  that: 

"  Papias  relates  in  his  second  book  of  the  Oracles  of  the  Lord, 
that  John  was  slain  by  the  Jews,  fulfilling  manifestly,  together  with 
his  brother,  the  prediction  of  Christ  concerning  them,  and  their 
own  confession  and  undertaking  in  the  matter."  ^ 

1  Confusion  between  "  James  the  Just  "  and  James  the  son  of  Zebedee 
is  frequent  in  post -apostolic  literature. 

2  Cf.  Mark  iii,  14. 

3  The  MS.  Coisi.  305  (tenth  or  efeventh  centur>')  of  Georgius  Hamartolus, 


144  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Their  cogency  will  doubtless  be  variously  judged,  and  must 
depend  largely  on  the  value  attached  to  the  alleged  witness 
of  Papias.  Corroboration  of  this  has  been  found  in  ancient 
martyro  logics  which  celebrate  the  martyrdom  of  "James  and 
John"  the  sons  of  Zebedee  on  the  day  following  that  of 
Stephen,  which  itself  follows  the  anniversary  of  the  incar- 
nation. Not  improbably  there  is  connection  between  the 
martyrologies  and  the  Synoptic  passage,  and  perhaps  Pa- 
pias as  well.  They  at  least  serve  to  show  how  "  the  predic- 
tion of  Christ  concerning "  James  and  John  was  understood 
at  an  early  date.  But  they  cannot  compel  us  to  understand 
Mk.  10:39  in  the  sense  of  a  simultaneous  martyrdom  of  the 
two  brethren.  That  conception  might  quite  as  easily  be 
based  on  the  confusion  so  frequent  in  early  Christian  writers 
between  James  the  brother  of  John,  and  James  the  brother 
of  the  Lord.  Galatiansarg  gives  strong  evidence  that  John 
the  brother  of  James  was  still  a  "pillar"  of  the  Jerusalem 
church  at  least  fourteen  years  after  Paul's  conversion;  for 
against  Schwartz's  attempt  to  explain  it  as  referring  to  John 
Mark  stands  the  unmistakable  evidence  of  the  Lukan  rep- 
resentations of  John  (without  James)  as  a  faint  satelHte  of 
Peter  ^  in  the  beginnings  of  the  Jerusalem  church,  and  the 
relative  obscurity  of  Mark.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have 
some  reason  apart  from  the  application  made  in  Rev. 
11:8  of  the  legend  of  the  two  martyred  witnesses,  to  think 
that  Jerusalem,  the  bloody  city,  murderess  of  the  proph- 
ets, "where  also  their  Lord  was  crucified,"  became  in- 
deed in  the  period  just  before  its  destruction  the  scene  of 
at  least  a  double  martyrdom,  one  of  the  confessors  being 
James  the  brother  of  the  Lord.    The  well  known  passage 

published  by  Muralt,  (Petersburg,  1895,  p.  xvii,  f.).     Cf.  the  fragment  from 
Cod.  Baroccianus  142  in  the  Bodleian  library  quoted  above  (p.  143)  from 
de  Boor    T.  11.  U.  v.  2,  p.  170. 
1  Lk.  22:8;  Acts  3:1,  3,  11;  4:13,  19. 


THE  MARTYR  APOSTLES  145 

of  Joscphus,  Ant.  XX,  ix,  i,  gives  positive  evidence  to  this 
effect : 

"As  therefore  Ananus  (the  high  jjriest  appointed  by  Agrippa  II 
ca.  62  A.  P.,  a  son  of  the  New  Testament  Annas),  was  of  such  a 
disposition  (harsh  towards  insubordination  hke  the  Sadducees), 
he  thought  he  had  now  a  good  opportunity  as  Festus  was  now 
dead,  and  Albinus  was  stiU  on  the  road.  So  he  assembled  the 
Sanhedrin  of  judges,  and  brought  l)cf()re  them  the  brother  of 
Jesus  who  was  called  Christ,  whose  name  was  James,  and  some 
others,  and  having  accused  them  as  breakers  of  the  law  he  de- 
livered them  over  to  be  stoned." 

HegcsippuSj  the  Palestinian  father  whose  five-chaptered 
book  of  Memoirs  written  at  Rome  ca.  170  a.  d.,  is  Eusebius' 
main  reliance  for  the  history  of  the  Jerusalem  church  after 
the  departure  of  Paul  to  Rome,  has  a  very  confused  and 
inconsistent  account  of  the  martyrdom,  transferring  to  it 
traits  from  Luke's  account  of  the  martyrdom  of  Stephen,  as 
Luke  himself  would  seem  to  have  introduced  into  that  of 
Stephen  the  trait  of  trial  before  the  Sanhedrin  on  charges  of 
speaking  again.st  the  temple  and  the  law.^  According  to 
Hegcsippus  James'  life  was  a  sacrifice  to  the  fanaticism  of 
some  of  the  heretical  sects  among  the  Jews,  whose  descrip- 
tion corresponds  exactly  with  that  of  Polycarp's  adversaries. 
Like  those  who  "denied  resurrection  and  judgment"  they 

"  did  not  believe  cither  in  a  resurrection  or  in  one's  coming  to 
give  every  man  according  to  his  works." 

James,  as  Hegcsippus  proceeds  to  relate,  was  placed  by 
the  rulers  on  the  "pinnacle"  of  the  temple  at  Passover,  with 
the  expectation  that  he  would  repudiate  this  apocalyptic 
type  of  Christology.     When  on  the  contrary 

"he  answered  with  a  loud  voice,  'Why  do  ye  ask  me  concerning 
Jesus  the  Son  of  man?    He  himself  sitteth  in  heaven  at  the  right 

'See  Bacon:    "Stephen's  Speech"    in   Contributions  of  the  Semitic  and 
Biblical  Faculty,  "Vale  Bicentennial  Publications,"  lyoi. 
Fourth  Gospel — 10 


146  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

hand  of  the  great  Power,  and  is  about  to  come  on  the  clouds  of 
heaven'     .     .     .     they  went  up  and  threw  down  the  just  man." 

The  story  is  properly  at  an  end  here;  for  not  only  is  a  fall 
from  "the  pinnacle  of  the  temple"  something  self -evidently 
fatal  in  Mt.  4:5-7  =  Lk,  4:9-12,  but  immediately  before  the 
statement  "they  threw  down  the  just  man"  the  narrator 
introduces  (in  Jewish  fashion)  a  scripture  fulfilment  from 
Is.  3:10: 

"  And  they  fulfilled  the  scripture  written  in  Isaiah,  '  Let  us  take 
away  the  just  man,  because  he  is  troublesome  to  us:  therefore 
they  shall  eat  the  fruit  of  their  doings.'  " 

The  itahcized  words  are  intended  to  connect  the  fate  of 
Jerusalem  with  the  murder  of  James,  and  should  therefore 
be  followed  at  no  great  remove  by  those  at  the  extreme  end 
of  the  paragraph  "And  immediately  Vespasian  besieged 
them."  Instead  of  this  we  have  a  second  martyrdom  of  the 
same  man  attached  without  a  break: 

"And  they  said  to  one  another, 'Let  us  stone  James  the  Just.'  So 
they  began  to  stone  him,  for  he  was  not  killed  by  the  fall;  but  he 
turned  and  knelt  down  and  said  'I  entreat  thee.  Lord  God  our 
Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do.'  .  .  . 
And  one  of  them  who  was  a  fuller,  took  the  club  with  which  he 
beat  out  clothes  and  struck  the  just  man  on  the  head.  And  thus 
he  sufifered  martyrdom." 

This  is  an  entirely  separate  account  of  the  martyrdom, 
with  its  own  adaptation  of  the  beautiful  trait  from  the  mar- 
tyrdom of  Stephen,^  in  contrast  to  the  vindictive  spirit  of  the 
narrative  first  given.  The  clause  itahcized,  which  aims  to 
explain  how  the  two  martyrdoms  could  be  perpetrated  on  the 
same  victim,  is  almost  ludicrously  inept.  The  proposal  to 
"stone  James  the  Just"  manifestly  does  not  presuppose  that 
he  is  already  lying  mangled  at  the  foot  of  "the  pinnacle  of 

1  Acts  7 :  60. 


THE  MARTYR  APOSTLES  147 

the  temple";  nor  can  the  martyr  from  that  situation  very 
well  "turn,  and  kneel  down"  and  olYer  his  Christ-Ukc 
prayer.^  On  the  contrary,  that  which  must  really  follow  the 
words  "and  they  went  up  and  threw  down  the  just  man" 
in  the  former  account,  is  the  clause  at  the  end  of  the  second 
citation,  "and  thus  he  suffered  martyrdom"  with  the  state- 
ment which  now  follows  the  latter: 

"And  they  buried  him  on  the  spot  by  the  temple,  and  his  monu- 
ment still  remains  by  the  temple" 

for  in  the  second  narrative  no  particular  spot  is  mentioned. 

The  self-evident  dupUcation  may  be  due  to  either  one  of 
two  sorts  of  combination:  (i)  Hegesippus  may  have  inter- 
woven two  diverse  accounts  of  the  death  of  James;  or  (2)  he 
may  have  combined  the  accounts  of  two  different  martyr- 
doms. We  are  not  without  some  internal  indications  that 
the  latter  is  the  case  besides  the  statement  of  Joscphus  that 
James  was  not  the  only  victim.  There  are  even  hints  that 
James'  principal  companion  in  martyrdom  was  no  other  than 
John  the  son  of  Zebedee,  his  fellow  "pillar"  in  the  Church 
and  the  only  survivor  there  of  the  group  described  by  Paul. 

The  earlier  portion  of  Euscbius'  extract  from  Hegesippus 
when  reexamined  in  the  light  of  the  later  portion  displays 
the  same  characteristics  of  duphcation.  Two  surnames  are 
said  to  have  been  given  to  James.  He  was  called  "the  Just" 
to  distinguish  him  from  others  of  the  name  of  James.  But 
he  was  also  surnamed  "Oblias,"  which  Hegesippus  inter- 
prets "  Bulwark  of  the  Peoj)lc,"  because  of  his  constant  in- 
tercession for  them  in  the  temple.  If  so,  then  the  former 
surname  was  not  recjuired.  IMoreover,  the  words  added  to 
this  translation  "and  righteousness"  clearly  do  not  apply  to 
it,  but  would  seem  to  belong  to  a  rendering  of  the  other  sur- 

1  Later  writers  (Epiphanius,  Jerome)  therefore  interject  here  either  a 
miraculous  preservation  from  injury  by  the  fail,  or  an  equally  miraculous 
disregard  of  the  broken  bones. 


148  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

name.  Furthermore,  we  are  given  a  long  description  of  the 
intercessor,  Oblias,  which  is  clearly  of  a  piece  with  the  de- 
scription of  the  second  martyrdom  whose  victim  kneels  down 
to  pray  for  the  forgiveness  of  the  people.    It  runs  as  follows: 

"He  was  holy  from  his  mother's  womb;  and  he  drank  no  wine 
nor  strong  drink,  nor  did  he  eat  flesh.  No  razor  came  upon  his 
head;  he  did  not  anoint  himself  with  oil  nor  did  he  use  the  bath. 
He  alone  was  permitted  to  enter  the  holy  place;  for  he  wore  not 
woolen  but  linen  garments.^  And  he  was  in  the  habit  of  entering 
alone  into  the  temple,  and  was  frequently  found  upon  his  knees 
begging  forgiveness  for  the  people,  so  that  his  knees  became  hard 
like  those  of  a  camel,  m  consequence  of  his  constantly  bending 
them  in  his  worship  of  God,  and  asking  forgiveness  for  the  people." 

Later  writers  go  still  further  in  developing  the  portrait  of 
this  high-priestly  intercessor.  Epiphanius,  who  used  Hege- 
sippus,  states  in  two  passages  that  James  was  both  of  high- 
priestly  descent  and  wore  the  ireraXov  upon  his  hcad.^  In 
the  context  of  the  second  ^  he  connects  James'  wearing  of 
the  linen  garment  with  Mk.  14:51,  and  makes  this  costume 
to  have  been  distinctive  of  him  and  the  two  sons  of  Zebedee, 
John  being  identified  with  the  youth  of  Mk,  14:51.  Epi- 
phanius adds  further  in  the  same  context  (in  spite  of  I  Cor.  9 : 
5)  that  James  maintained  perpetual  virginity. 

But  all  these  arc  traits  which  elsewhere  we  find  attached 
to  the  Apostle  John!  In  Jn.  18:15  "the  beloved  disciple" 
identified  in  21 :  24  with  the  son  of  Zebedee  is  an  intimate  of 
/v  I  the  high-priest's  family.  In  the  tradition  of  Asia  cited  by 
Polycrates  of  Ephesus  ca.  190  a.  d.  he  had  worn  the  TreraXou. 
The  ascetic  mode  of  life  and  the  linen  clothing  are  both 
traits  derived  from  New  Testament  characters  of-  the  name 

1  The  garb  necessary  for  the  priests  and  allowed  to  them  only.  Josephus 
attributes  the  disasters  of  the  war  to  the  presumption  of  the  Levites  in 
venturing  to  assume  the  linen  vestments. 

2  Haer.  xxix,  4  and  Ixxviii,  14. 

3  Ixxviii,  13. 


THE  MARTYR  APOSTLES  149 

of  John,  though  in  the  one  case  it  is  the  Baptist,  in  the  other 
probably  John  Alark  who  is  originally  meant.  In  the  Gnos- 
tic Acts  of  John  (170  A.  D.)  the  perpetual  virginity  of  John  is 
the  ground  of  the  title  "the  beloved  disciple."  James,  on 
the  other  hand,  was  certainly  not  of  priestly  descent  and  had 
no  access  to  the  holy  place  in  the  temple.  He  would  seem 
from  I  Cor.  9:5  to  have  been  married.  In  view  of  all  these 
{phenomena  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  conjecture  that  the 
dupHcations  of  Hcgesippus'  narrative  arc  due  not  to  a  com- 
bination of  two  accounts  of  the  martyrdom  of  James,  but 
to  consolidation  of  the  double  martyrdom  of  James  and 
John. 

The  Memoirs  of  Hcgesippus  furnish  still  further  evidence  i 
that  no  survivor  remained  after  70  a.  d.  of  the  original  twelve,' 
at  least  not  one  who  had  stood  next  to  James  as  a  "pillar" 
at  Paul's  visit  in  48-50  A.  d. 

"  After  James  the  Just  had  suffered  martyrdom,  as  the  Lord  1 
had  also  on  the  same  account,  Symeon,  the  son  of  the  Lord's  ' 
uncle,   Clopas,   was,  appointed  the  next  bishop  (of  Jerusalem). 
All  proposed  him  as  second  bishop  because  he  was  a  cousin  of 
the  Lord."  ^ 

According  to  a  previous  statement  of  Eusebius,'  "the 
apostles  and  disciples  of  the  Lord  that  were  still  hving  came 
together  from  all  directions"  on  this  occasion.  But  the  out- 
break of  heresy  is  attributed  by  Hcgesippus  to  a  certain 
Jew,  Thebuthis,  who  at  this  time  had  expected  to  become 
the  successor  of  James,  and  on  account  of  his  disappoint- 
ment led  off  the  heretical  sects.'''  No  great  rehance  can  be 
placed  upon  the  confused  chronology  of  Hcgesippus;  but  we 

1  Hcgesippus,  ap.  Eusebius,  H.  E.  IV,  xxii,  4. 

2  H.  E.  Ill,  xi,  I. 

3  Another  inconsistency.  If  heresy  has  its  origin  in  the  chagrin  of  The- 
buthis in  ca.  70  the  Church  cannot  have  remained,  as  claimed,  virgin  pure 
from  heresy  until  the  death  of  the  last  of  the  witnesses  "in  the  times  of 
Trajan." 


I50  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

can  at  least  say  that  Thebuthis  could  hardly  have  cherished 
the  alleged  aspirations  while  John  the  Apostle  and  "pillar" 
was  still  alive.  Certainly  Hegesippus  implies  that  the  only 
surviving  relatives  of  the  Lord  were  the  two  grandsons  of 
Jude  when  these  were  brought  before  Domitian  shortly  after 
his  accession.  He  plainly  states  that  this  marked  the  end  of 
persecution  on  the  score  of  Davidic  pretensions.  We  cannot 
but  infer  that  the  martyrdom  of  the  successor  of  James, 
Symeon  the  Lord's  cousin,  on  the  same  charge,  a  martyr- 
dom which  Hegesippus  dates  under  Trajan,  at  the  age  of 
I20  years  (!),  has  undergone  displacement.^  But  the  ques- 
tion of  the  inconsistencies  of  Hegesippus,  though  too  wide 
for  present  consideration,  is  certainly  wide  enough  to  leave 
room  for  a  martyrdom  of  John  as  well  as  James  the  Just  in 
the  troublous  times  antecedent  to  the  Christians'  withdrawal 
from  the  spiritual  Sodom  and  Egypt.' 

The  question  remains.  How  could  the  Church  pitch  upon 
the  very  same  individual  who  at  an  earlier  time  had  been 
widely  held  in  reverence  as  fulfilhng  the  prophecy  "Ye  shall 
drink  my  cup"  to  be  the  subject  of  the  almost  contradictory 
prophecy,  "Some  of  them  that  stand  by  shall  not  taste  of 
death  till  they  see  the  Son  of  man  coming  in  his  kingdom"? 

Some  bearing  on  this  question  must  certainly  be  conceded 
to  the  coincidence  that  one  of  the  Elders  ^  of  the  Jerusalem 
church,  who  survived,  according  to  Epiphanius,  until  the 

1  The  motive  would  be  again  the  prophecy  of  the  surviving  witness. 
Symeon  represents  the  generation  that  should  not  pass  away.  His  age  (120 
years)  is  the  Old  Testament  limit  of  human  life  (Gen.  6:3;  Deut.  34:7). 
Traditions  of  the  survival  of  "witnesses"  "until  the  times  of  Trajan"  in 
the  Jerusalem  church  parallel  the  later  traditions  of  Ephesus. 

2  The  reference  in  this  expression  of  Rev.  11:8  is  to  Lot's  withdrawal 
and  Israel's  exodus.     CJ.  Lk.  17:28-32. 

3  In  the  Jerusalem  church  the  links  of  the  succession  (biaboxfi)  on  which 
the  second  century  laid  such  stress  were  reckoned  as  "Apostles  and  Elders" 
(Acts  11:30;  15:6,  etc.),  "the  elders,  the  disciples  of  the  Apostles"  (Papias 
ap.  Iren.  Haer.  V,  v,  i  and  passim);  not  "bishops"  as  in  the  Greek  churches. 


THE  MARTYR  APOSTLES  151 

year  117  a.  d.,  bore  this  same  name  John.  This  Elder  John 
(of  Jerusalem),  whom  Pai)ias  still  carefully  distinguishes 
by  the  title  from  the  apostle  of  the  same  name,  is  certainly 
confounded  with  him  by  Irena^us  in  his  (juotations  from 
Papias,  and  very  ])robab]y  also  in  his  boyhood  recollections 
of  Polycarp's  references  to  anecdotes  of  "John"  about  the 
Lord  "concerning  his  miracles  and  his  teaching."  Since  it  is 
to  IrcncTUS  and  his  contemporaries  and  fellow-defenders  of 
the  Johannine  authorship  of  the  Ephesian  canon  that  wc 
owe  the  tradition  of  John  the  Apostle  as  the  long-surviving 
witness,  this  fact  has  certainly  an  important  bearing.  But 
by  itself  alone  it  cannot  explain  the  well-nigh  complete 
eclipse  of  the  earlier  tradition  by  the  later.  A  more  im- 
portant factor  is  the  interaction  of  the  two  conflicting  "proph- 
ecies" of  Jesus,  facihtated  by  the  ambiguity  not  of  the  mere 
Greek  word  /xdprv^  but  of  the  deeper-lying  Semitic  tradition 
of  the  "witnesses  of  Messiah,"  wherein  both  the  martyr- 
dom and  the  witness-bearing  are  original  elements.  Its 
Protean  forms  admit  of  adaptation  to  every  contingency. 
Are  there  some  still  surviving  of  those  who  "stood  by"  when 
Jesus  uttered  his  memorable  assurance  of  vindication  within 
the  lifetime  of  the  perverse  generation  which  rejected  him? 
These  may  be  the  fulfilUng  counterparts  of  those  apocalyptic 
"witnesses  of  Messiah"  who  were  not  to  "taste  of  death" 
until  they  had  seen  and  heralded  the  Lord's  Christ.^  Have 
two  shared  the  Baptist's  fate,  and  the  rest  departed  before 
the  coming  of  the  Lord  ?  Then  these  two  may  be  expected 
to  return  with  him  at  his  second  advent,  devouring  their 
enemies  with  fire  from  heaven  "as  Elijah  did."  For  this  is 
precisely  the  role  assigned  by  the  Church  of  Justin's  day  to 

Under  Hadrian  this  church  still  claimed  as  its  leaders  "the  disciples  of  the 
disciples  of  the  Apostles"  (Epiph.  de  mens.  xv). 

1  The  story  of  Simeon,  Lk.  2:25  fT.,  as  well  as  that  of  Zacharias,  Lk.  1:17, 
seems  to  have  points  of  contact  with  the  legend  of  the  Forerunner. 


152  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

its  John  the  Baptist-Elias,  The  martyrdom  also  is  a  mark 
of  the  "witnesses,"  Surely  in  the  long  interval  which  in- 
tervened between  the  martyrdom  of  the  two  sons  of  Zebedee 
there  must  have  been  some  who  began  to  ask  whether  the 
fiaprvpia  of  John  might  not  be  the  tarrying  'witness.' 

Time  is  one  great  corrector  of  apocalypse.  The  spirit 
of  Jesus  was  another.  Rapidly  after  the  seventies  the  course 
of  events  demonstrated  the  inadmissibiUty  of  both  apocalyp- 
tic forms  of  the  Christianized  doctrine  of  "the  witnesses  of 
Messiah,"  the  "tarrying"  and  the  "following"  fxapTvpia. 
The  PauUne  doctrine  that  the  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  is 
the  pledge  of  the  parousia  came  to  its  predestined  right. 
The  very  apocalypse  which  makes  the  martyr-apostle  its 
mouthpiece — if  indeed  in  the  earlier  Palestinian  form  of  the 
book  it  be  John  and  no  other  who  is  the  seer  that  receives 
his  revelation  of  "the  things  which  must  come  to  pass"  in 
an  anticipatory  ascension  in  spirit  to  heaven  ^ — even  Reve- 
lation no  longer  holds  to  a  Kteral  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy. 
Paulinism  enters  even  here:  "The  /xaprvpia  of  Jesus  is  the 
spirit  of  prophecy."  ^  With  this  interpretation  it  matters 
Httle  whether  the  apostle-prophet  "tarries"  or  "follows," 
the  "witness"  is  given.  Twenty  years  later  the  churches  of 
Asia  are  passing  through  a  new  crisis.  Persecution  with- 
out is  allied  to  heresy  within.  The  prophet-witness  of  Jesus 
is  invoked  again.  From  Patmos,  whither  he  is  brought  "for 
the  word  of  God  and  the  testimony  of  Jesus,"  he  is  made  to 
deliver  his  message  again  in  new  and  broader  form  to  meet 
the  double  enemy  on  a  wider  field.  This  is  not  "forgery." 
Even  if  the  pseudonymity  be  deliberate,  this  is  simply  the 
method  of  apocalypse,  which  has  not  one  true  representative 
among  its  multitude  of  productions  that  is  not  pseudony- 

1  With  Rev.  11:12  cf.  4:1.  Ascension  to  heaven  is  another  point  in  which 
James  the  Lord's  brother  is  decked  with  the  plumage  of  John  by  later  writers. 

2  Rev.  19:10. 


THE  MARTYR  APOSTLES  153 

mous.  Its  strict  parallel  is  found  in  the  use  of  the  authority 
of  Peter  against  the  same  heretics  in  II  Peter.  The  Aj)jx'n- 
dix  to  the  Fourth  Gospel  furnishes  the  key  to  the  history 
of  the  conflicting  traditions  of  John  the  "following"  and 
the  "tarrying"  witness,  superseded  as  they  could  not  fail 
to  be  by  the  Pauline- Johannine  doctrine  that  the  true  prophet- 
witness  of  Messiah,  refuting  the  false  prophecy  of  Antichrist- 
gnosis,  abiding  with  the  Church  until  the  coming  of  the 
Lord,  is  the  "witness  of  the  Spirit."  But  how  inevitable  it 
was  that  an  age  which  took  Htcrally  the  symbolism  of  the 
prophet-apostle  in  Patmos,  addressing  "the  churches  of 
Asia,"  should  cling  to  one  form  of  the  earlier  "prophecy" 
of  Jesus,  and  gradually  build  up  for  itself,  first  in  Palestine, 
afterward,  in  Ircn^eus'  time,  in  Asia,  the  legend  of  the 
"tarrying  Witness." 

Our  study  of  external  evidences  has  shown  a  complete 
contrast  between  the  periods  before  and  after  the  middle  of 
the  second  century.  Before  it  no  trace  whatever  of  the 
Johannine  writings  save  in  Asia,  and  there  mere  echoes  and 
influences,  attesting  indeed  the  existence  of  a  body  of  teach- 
ing similar  to  what  we  find  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  but  far 
from  what  we  should  expect  on  the  traditional  theory  of 
authorship. 

As  regards  the  standards  of  evangelic  tradition  Asia  rests 
its  Christology  on  the  name  of  Paul.  John  is  not  mentioned. 
Its  evangelic  tradition  rests  on  Matthew,  with  subordinate 
use  of  ^lark.  John  is  mentioned  only  as  the  seer  of  the 
Apocalypse,  and  this  only  after  140  a.  d.  There  is  no  local 
apostolic  authority.  The  apostles  and  elders  to  whom  appeal 
is  made  for  the  historic  sense  of  Jesus'  teaching  are,  as  in 
Acts,  the  sacred  college  in  Jerusalem. 

As  respects  the  person  and  work  of  John  specifically  there 
is  nothing  whatever  to  suggest  his  presence  in  Asia  save  the 


154  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

acceptance  of  Revelation  by  Papias  and  Justin.  The  so- 
journ "in  Patmos"  rec|uired  by  Rev.  i  :9  is  fixed  by  the  Mttr- 
raiorianum  at  a  date  antecedent  to  the  Pauhne  Epistles  (!). 
Whether  Papias  and  Justin  conceived  the  apostoKc  visit 
as  having  really  occurred  at  that  time,  we  cannot  tell.  It 
is  quite  possible  that  in  regarding  the  revelation  as  a  whole 
as  a|to7rto-T09,  they  had  no  intention  of  indorsing  the  entire 
editorial  framework  in  1:1-3:22  and  22:8-21.  We  have 
definite  testimony  from  two  sources  that  Papias  reported 
the  death  of  John  by  martyrdom  at  the  hands  of  "the  Jews," 
which  corresponds  with  the  prediction  of  Mk.  10:39  ^^<i 
some  other  traces  in  early  Palestinian  tradition.  Such  is 
the  sum  total  of  external  evidence  on  the  Johannine  prob- 
lem for  the  first  half  of  the  second  century. 

The  facts  are  neither  abundant  nor  clear,  but  so  far  as 
available  all  point  in  one  direction.  The  later  Irenasan 
tradition  of  apostles  and  elders  in  Asia,  on  which  were  largely 
based  the  claims  of  the  champions  of  the  fourfold  gospel  in 
180-220  A.  D.,  in  the  light  of  these  facts  can  only  be  a  pseudo- 
tradition,  whose  origin  must  be  studied  in  connection  with 
the  dissemination  of  the  fourfold  gospel. 


PART  II 
THE  DIRECT  INTERNAL  EVIDENCE 


PART   II 

THE  DIRECT  INTERNAL  EVIDENCE 
CHAPTER  \T 

THE    JOHN    OF    REVELATION 

The  external  evidence  as  we  ha\e  followed  it  shows  a 
marked  transition  about  i6o  a.  d.  Previously  there  is  just 
enough  to  show  the  existence  in  Asia  after  110-117  a.  d.  of 
"a  body  of  teaching  like  that  which  we  find  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel,"  with  traces  of  the  "  Johannine"  Epistles.  Neither 
seem  to  be  known  outside  of  proconsular  Asia  until  about 
152  A.  D.,  and  the  employment  of  the  Epistles  and  Gospel  in 
mode  and  measure  falls  far  short  of  what  we  should  expect 
of  an  apostolic  autograph.  Paul,  not  John,  is  the  apostoUc 
authority  whpse  doctrine  and  writings  are  appealed  to,  and 
who  lives  in  the  remembrance  of  the  churches.  Only  at  the 
ver}'  close  of  the  period  is  there  the  beginning  of  a  change. 
It  is  now  a  fuU  generation  after  Polycarp  had  uttered  his 
anathema  upon  those  who  were  misinterpreting  the  sayings 
of  the  Lord  to  their  own  lusts,  and  denying  the  (physical) 
resurrection  and  (apocalyptic)  judgment,  and  had  exhorted 
his  readers  to  meet  "the  empty  talk  of  the  many  and  their 
false  teachings"  by  turning  "unto  the  word  handed  down 
unto  us  from  the  beginning."  At  this  time  (145-150  A.  d.)  we 
begin  to  find  a  sense  of  the  importance  of  duly  authenti- 
cated records.  Papias  now  undertakes  to  establish  on  the 
one  hand  the  evangcHc  tradition  on  a  firm  historical  basis  by 
"Interpretations"  authenticated  by  transmission  from  "the 

157 


158  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

apostles  and  ciders."  On  the  other  hand  he  maintains  the 
"trustworthiness"  of  the  book  of  Revelation  with  the  im- 
plied appeal  to  the  authority  of  "John." 

It  is  not  necessary  to  assume  that  Papias'  "Interpreta- 
tions," based  on  the  Gospels  of  Matthew  and  Mark,  for 
which  he  claimed  the  largest  measure  of  apostoHc  authority 
compatible  with  their  known  derivation,  were  intended  as  a 
direct  answer  to  the  Exegetka  of  Basilides,  based  on  the 
more  recent  Gospel  of  Luke;  but,  in  view  of  the  close  con- 
nection between  Polycarp's  exhortation  and  Papias'  defini- 
tion of  his  object  and  method,  we  must  at  least  admit  that 
the  abuses  aimed  at  were  the  same.  Considering  too  what 
Eusebius  tells  us  of  the  infection  of  chihasm  which  was 
traceable  from  Papias  "through  so  many  of  the  church 
fathers  after  him,  as  for  example  Irenaeus,"  we  may  safely 
say  that  Justin  ]Martyr  and  Papias,  contemporaries  in  their 
writings  and  allies  against  the  same  deniers  of  the  resurrec- 
tion and  judgment,  were  also  at  one  in  their  appeal  to  and 
dependence  on  Revelation  as  "trustworthy"  because  "a 
revelation  granted  to  one  of  ourselves,  a  man  named  John, 
an  apostle  of  the  Lord." 

Thus  at  the  verj'  close  of  the  period  under  discussion  the 
Asiatic  Christians  are  seen  to  have,  besides  the  generally  cur- 
rent Pauline  Epistles  and  Gospels  of  iSIatthew  and  ]Mark,  one 
authoritative,  inspired,  apostolic,  book  of  their  own.  It  is 
introduced  by  seven  letters  to  their  own  churches  which  the 
Muratorianum  later  takes  to  have  sen-ed  as  model  for  the 
seven  church  letters  of  Paul.  Naturally  the  real  relation  is 
the  other  way,  though  the  seveniold  canon  of  Pauline  let- 
ters may  be  of  later  development.  "The  commandments  of 
God  and  the  faith  of  Jesus"  the  keeping  of  which  distin- 
guishes "the  saints"  in  this  book  (Rev.  14:12)  are  embodied, 
the  former  in  the  Old  Testament,  the  latter  in  "the  ever- 
lasting gospel,"  which  of  course  is  unwritten.    Its  own  princi- 


THE  JOHN  OF  REVELATION  159 

pal  content  is  a  revelation  or  "prophecy"  of  "the  things 
which  must  shortly  come  to  pass,"  said  to  have  been  granted 
to  John  the  Apostle  when  in  the  island  of  Patmos  "for  the 
word  of  God  and  the  testimony  of  Jesus."  Ephcsus  thus 
seems  to  have  taken  the  lead  in  the  formation  of  a  New 
Testament  canon.  But  its  canon  consisted  of  only  one  book, 
a  book  of  "prophecy."  The  gospel  it  presents  was  unwritten. 
The  epistles  which  introduce  it  have  canonical  standing  only 
as  a  framework  for  the  "prophecy." 

We  cannot  safely  say  that  the  indorsement  of  Revelation 
given  about  150  a.  d.  by  Papias  and  Justin  was  intended  to 
cover  more  than  the  doctrine  then  actually  in  dispute,  i.  e., 
"the  resurrection  and  the  judgment."  Hegesippus  also,  as 
we  have  seen,  reckons  the  denial  of  these  among  the  early 
heresies  which  took  their  rise  from  Judaism.^  The  wording 
of  the  indorsement  is  such  (rb  a^LOTnarov,  "testified  in  a  reve- 
lation granted  to  him")  as  not  to  commit  the  church  fathers 
to  a  definite  statement  as  to  John's  residence  in  Asia,  or  as 
to  his  personal  authorship.  Papias  and  Justin  may  be  merely 
indorsing  the  attribution  of  the  contained  "revelation"  to 
the  Apostle  John,  without  specifically  vouching  for  the  mise 
en  scene  of  the  prefixed  letters  to  the  churches,  in  which  the 
seer  is  represented  as  sojourning  in  Patmos.  They  may  on 
the  other  hand  have  thought  of  this  sojourn  as  actual,  but 
referred  it,  as  it  is  referred  in  the  Muraiorianum,  to  the  period 
before  the  coming  of  Paul  to  Ephesus.'  The  reported  state- 
ment of  Papias  that  "John  was  killed  by  the  Jews,"  makes 
it  probable  that  if  he  acce])ted  the  representation  of  John's 
sojourn  in  Patmos,  he  regarded  it  as  only  a  temporary  in- 

1  Even  in  .^cts  the  Sadducees,  i.  e.,  the  priestly  nobility,  are  treated  as  if 
they  were  a  doctrinal  party.    Cf.  Acts  4:2  and  23:6-8. 

-  Cf.  Acts  19:1-7.  It  is  possible  that  the  existence  of  a  body  of  disciples 
of  "John"  in  Ephesus  before  the  coming  of  Paul  may  have  played  some 
part  in  the  development  of  the  tradition. 


i6o  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

terruption  of  the  Apostle's  regular  residence  in  Jerusalem. 
At  all  events  we  have  in  the  indorsement  by  both  Fapias  and 
Justin  of  the  book  of  Revelation  as  their  authority  against 
the  opponents  of  chihasm  in  about  150  a.  d.  our  first  trace 
of  the  tradition  of  John  as  an  author,  and  indeed  the  first 
trace  of  his  alleged  residence  in  Asia. 

Since  the  assertion  is  clearly  and  emphatically  made  in 
Rev.  22:  8,  "I  John  am  he  that  heard  and  saw  these  things," 
although  appended  after  the  formal  and  solemn  conclusion, 
22 : 6-7,^  and  since  the  prefixed  letters  to  the  churches  of 
Asia  are  similarly  written  in  the  name  of  "John,"  although 
no  trace  of  the  Johannine  personality  appears  in  the  sub- 
stance of  the  Apocalypse  (4: 1-22:  7),  we,  are  called  upon  to 
treat  the  prologue  and  epilogue  of  Revelation  (chaps.  1-4, 
and  22:8-21)  as  conveying  "direct  internal  evidence"  on 
the  question  of  Johannine  authorship.  It  must  of  course  be 
tested  in  its  own  connection,  and  if  found  untrustworthy, 
dependent  assertions  of  later  date  will  add  nothing  to  its 
weight. 

Besides  the  exphcit,  not  to  say  obtrusive,  claims  of  Rev.  1-3 
and  22:8-21  on  behalf  of  the  apocalypse  which  they  com- 
mend to  "the  churches  of  Asia,"  we  have  at  least  one  other 
testimony,  which  directly  affects  the  Fourth  Gospel,  but 
presents  a  singular  contrast  to  that  of  Revelation  in  the 
veiled  and  ambiguous  mode  of  its  reference  to  the  Apostle, 
that  of  the  Appendix.  Lightfoot  even  considered  that  the 
First  Epistle  of  John  had  been  also  written  to  accompany 
the  Gospel,  for  the  purpose  of  commending  it  to  the  various 
classes  of  readers  addressed  in  I  Jn.  2  :  12-14;  and  it  is  certain 

1  Rev.  22:  8-9,  it  should  be  noted,  simply  takes  up  and  repeats  Rev.  19:10, 
adding  to  it  this  identification  of  the  "prophet,"  who  speaks  in  19:10  without 
making  any  pretense  of  the  kind.  In  the  following  verses  (10-21)  the  angel 
of  prophecy  whom  the  "prophet"  has  now  been  twice  forbidden  to  worship, 
suddenly  becomes  "Jesus"  and  "the  Alpha  and  Omega"  of  the  "epistles" 
to  the  churches,  certainly  a  worthy  object  of  worship. 


THE  JOHN  OK  REVELATION       ,         i6i 

that  the  Mnratoriauum  already  appeals  to  I  Jn.  i :  1-3  as 
referring  to  the  Gospel.  There  would  then  be  examples  in 
these  three  instances  of  editorial  compositions  aiming  to  per- 
form for  literary  products  the  function  of  the  "epistles  of  com- 
mendation" delivered  to  oral  preachers.  However  this  may 
be — and  we  shall  have  occasion  later  to  revert  to  the  claim — 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Appendix,  Jn.  21,  is  composed 
with  the  object  of  commending  the  Gospel  it  accompanies  to 
the  Christian  world,  and  intends  to  suggest  the  identity  of  "the 
disciple  whom  Jesus  loved  which  also  leaned  back  on  his 
breast  at  the  supper,  and  said,  Lord,  who  is  he  that  be- 
trayeth  thee  ?"  with  the  evangelist.  In  a  more  enigmatic  and 
\eiled  way  it  seems  also  to  identify  this  "disciple  whom 
Jesus  loved"  with  John  the  son  of  Zebedee.  This  representa- 
tion is  combined,  as  we  have  seen,  by  the  Muratorianum  with 
I  Jn.  1:1-3  to  form  its  proof  of  the  Johannine  authorship, 
and  since  these  passages  can  be  shown  to  underlie  all  the 
earliest  patristic  claims,  they  may  also  be  reasonably  classi- 
fied as  "direct  internal  evidence."  In  due  time  we  shall  have 
to  scrutinize  the  Appendix  and  its  relation  to  the  Gospel 
which  it  accompanies,  asking  what  grounds  there  may  be 
for  accepting  or  rejecting  its  statement  "This  is  the  disciple 
whicli  beareth  witness  of  these  things  and  wrote  these 
things."  If  the  words  are  really  written  by  John's  "fellow- 
disciples  (apostles)  and  bishops,"  as  it  has  been  the  habit  of 
churchmen  since  the  Muratorianum  to  assume,  they  will  un- 
doubtedly carry  very  great  weight.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
Appendix  does  not  appear  to  be  known  before  160  a.  d,,  and 
seems  not  to  speak  at  first  hand,  but  to  partake  of  the  char- 
acter of  other  ejjilogues,  subscriptions,  argumenta,  and  ap- 
pendices of  this  period,  in  basing  its  statements  on  inferences 
drawn  from  the  writings  themselves  which  they  indorse,^  it 

1  This  is  notoriously  the  case  with  the  "subscriptions"  to  the  Pauline 
Fourth  Gospel — 11 


i62  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

will  carry  no  more  weight  than  the  correctness  or  incorrect- 
ness of  its  exegesis  warrants.  Thus  the  direct  internal  evi- 
dence may  be  found  to  resolve  itself  simply  into  a  subordinate 
element  of  the  indirect — one  example  more  of  how  in  the  age 
of  the  canon-makers  evidences  were  sought  in  the  long- 
accepted  writings  of  the  Church,  which  should  prove  them 
of  really  apostoHc  derivation  as  against  the  "new  scriptures" 
which  were  beginning  to  be  poured  out  from  Gnostic  and 
other  sources.  But  this  study  of  epilogues  to  the  Gospel, 
actual  or  only  possible,  must  be  taken  up  later.  First  of  all 
we  must  consider  the  earlier  traceable  and  more  explicit 
testimony  of  Revelation,  and  its  connection  with  the  later- 
appearing  tradition  of  John  in  Asia. 

Professor  Stanton  in  his  excellent  treatise  already  dis- 
cussed has  to  some  extent  commingled  under  the  single  head- 
ing "The  Silence  of  the  Sub-apostolic  Age"  ^  the  two  related 
questions:  (i)  Why  "there  should  be  no  allusion  to  the 
Apostle  John,  if  he  was,  or  had  been,  a  prominent  figure  in 
the  Church  in  the  province  of  Asia"  in  this  period;  (2)  why, 
if  the  Gospel  and  Epistles  circulating  in  that  province  were 
really  attributed  to  the  Apostle,  there  should  be  no  allusion 
to  the  fact  by  those  who  use  them  and  are  influenced  by  them, 
and  no  corresponding  employment.  We  confine  ourselves  to 
the  former  question,  deeming  what  has  been  already  said 
sufficient  on  the  mode  and  measure  of  employment  of  the 
books  in  question. 

The  writings  first  enumerated  as  showing  a  surprising 
silence  as  to  the  presence  of  John  in  Ephesus  are  (i)  the 
Epistle  to  the  Ephesians — held  by  some  to  have  been  com- 
posed in  the  last  two  decades  of  the  first  century — (2)  the 

Epistles.    Cf.  Muratorianum:  "The  letters  of  Paul  themselves  make  known 
to  those  who  would  know,  both  what  they  are,  and  from  what  place,  on 
what  occasion  they  were  sent." 
1  Pp.  164-166. 


THE  JOHN  OF  REVELATION  163 

Pastoral  Epistles  (90-100  a.  d.  ?)  and  (3)  the  Address  to  the 
Elders  at  Miletus  in  Acts  20  (85-95  A.  d,).  Since  the  Epistles 
to  Timothy  and  the  Address  at  Miletus  specially  concern 
themselves  with  the  inroads  of  heresy  at  Ephesus,  the  latter 
placing  in  Paul's  mouth  a  prediction  of  the  fate  of  the  flock 
"after  his  departure,"  because  of  the  "grievous  wolves"  and 
the  teachers  of  "perverse  things"  destined  to  arise  among 
themselves,  it  would  be  natural  to  expect  some  reference, 
even  if  a  veiled  one,  to  so  notable  a  reinforcement  as  the 
coming  of  John.  Those,  however,  who  find  it  possible  to 
date  the  book  of  Acts  so  early  as  in  the  years  immediately 
after  the  overthrow  of  Jerusalem,  an  event  generally  ad- 
mitted to  be  reflected  in  Luke's  "former  treatise,"  may  plead 
that  John's  coming  to  Ephesus  was  enough  later  to  account 
for  the  silence.^ 

Professor  Stanton  next  passes  (4)  "to  the  Epistle  of 
Clement  of  Rome."  But  what  of  I  Peter?  Some  even  of  the 
most  stalwart  champions  of  the  authenticity  of  this  epistle 
feel  compelled  by  its  reflection  of  the  period  of  governmental 
persecution  "for  the  Name"  to  date  it  at  least  as  late  as 
Domitian  (81-95  ^-  ^05  ^^^  ^^  increasing  number  of  critical 
scholars  regard  it  as  pseudonymous,  and  reflecting  the  same 
persecutions  referred  to  in  Pliny's  letter  to  Trajan  (112  A.  d.) 
which  affected  the  regions  addressed  in  I  Pet.  1:1.  Whatever 
its  authorship,  the  immense  preponderance  of  modern  scholar- 
ship makes  it  later  than  the  date  at  which  the  Johannine  resi- 
dence in  Asia  is  supposed  to  have  begun,  and  the  writer  himself 
in  addressing  "the  elect  ...  in  Pontus,  Galatia,  Cappa- 
docia,  Asia,  and  Bithynia"  in  the  name  of  "Peter,  an  apostle 
of  Jesus  Christ"  shows  how  much  weight  the  name  "John, 
an  apostle  of  Jesus  Christ"  would  have  carried  here  at  this 

1  It  should  be  remembered,  however,  that  if  in  the  early  seventies  John 
was  still  in  Jerusalem  the  representations  of  Hegesippus  as  to  events  suc- 
ceeding the  death  of  James  become  much  more  difiicult  to  account  for. 


i64  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

time.    Absolute  silence  in  I  Peter  under  these  circumstances 
is  not  a  quantite  negligcable.* 

Neither  should  the  Synoptists  be  forgotten,  whose  writings 
cover  approximately  the  period  from  75  to  95  a.  d.  Mark, 
it  is  true,  is  of  Roman  origin,  and  Matthew  of  south-Syrian, 
and  for  its  narrative  dependent  on  Mark.  But  Lk.-Acts  is 
Antiochian  on  the  authority  of  ancient  tradition  and  internal 
evidence  as  well.  The  Markan  idea  of  the  Apostle  John,  his 
character,  residence,  and  fate  we  have  already  considered.^ 
It  is  distinctly  unfavorable  to  the  Irenaean  tradition,  and  is 
followed  by  canonical  Matthew.  However,  Luke  quite  sig- 
nificantly omits  Mark's  prediction  of  the  martyrdom  of 
James  and  John,  giving  per  contra  a  rebuke  of  the  vindictive 
spirit  they  had  manifested.^  He  also  makes  a  further  step 
toward  the  assignment  of  an  individual  role  to  John.  Once 
in  the  Gospel  '^  and  seven  times  in  Acts  ^  John  appears,  a 
faint  satellite  just  emerging  into  separate  visibility  from  the 
rays  of  Peter's  glory.  But  there  is  still  no  suggestion  what- 
ever of  a  Johannine  residence  in  Asia,  although,  as  we  have 
seen,  Luke  follows  with  prophetic  interest  the  struggle  of 
the  Ephesian  church  after  Paul's  "departure"  against  the 
"grievous  wolves"  from  without  and  the  teachers  of  "per- 
verse things"  from  among  their  own  selves.  On  the  con- 
trary, Luke  is  a  stalwart  champion  of  Jerusalem  as  the  seat 
of  apostolic  authority  and  orthodox  tradition.  Even  Antioch, 
and  its  great  Apostle  Paul  have,  in  Luke's  view,  no  other  re- 
course for  the  settlement  of  the  one  great  dispute  which  he 

1  "Defenders"  explain  the  absence  of  reference  to  Paul  by  the  death  of 
that  apostle.  But  John  is  supposed  to  be  alive  and  resident  in  the  region 
addressed. 

2  Chapter  V.     The  Martyr  Apostles. 

3  Lk.  9:51-56,  attached  after  the  Markan  story  of  the  rebuke  of  John  for 
his  intolerance. 

4  Lk.  22:  8. 

6  Acts  3:1,  3,  4,  II,  13;  4:13,  19;  8:14. 


THE  JOHN  OF  REVELATION  165 

admits  to  have  threatened  in  some  degree  the  harmony  of 
apostolic  times,  save  to  "go  up  to  Jerusalem  unto  the  apostles 
and  elders  about  this  matter."  ^  From  "Peter  and  John" 
as  apostolic  delegates  from  Jerusalem  emanates,  according  to 
Luke,  the  endowment  of  the  Spirit  in  earlier  days;  -  from 
"James  and  the  elders"  the  ex  cathedra  determination  of 
questions  of  faith  and  practice  in  the  later.''  The  Antiochian 
synoptist  is  certainly  a  contemporary  of  the  period  of  the 
supposed  Ephesian  residence.  He  interests  himself  both  in 
Ephesus  and  in  John.  He  may  even  be  thought  to  evince  a 
certain  opposition  to  the  idea  of  the  martyr  fate  of  John. 
But  Luke  certainly  docs  not  bring  John  and  Ephesus  to- 
gether. He  knows  of  disciples  of  "John"  in  Ei)hesus;  but 
this  John  is  neither  the  Apostle  nor  the  mysterious  Elder,  but 
John  the  Baptist.  For  Luke  the  scat  of  apostolic  authority 
is  the  college  of  "apostles  and  elders"  at  Jerusalem,  presided 
over  by  "James  the  Lord's  brother."  It  is  still  so  in  Papias 
(rightly  interpreted)  and  in  Hegesippus.  This  enhanced 
importance  attached  by  Luke  not  to  Ephesus  but  to  Jeru- 
salem is  significant.  We  beg  lea\'e,  therefore,  to  add  to  the 
list  of  silent  witnesses  as  (5),  (6),  and  (7),  I  Peter,  Mark 
(with  Matthew),  and  Luke. 

We  may  probably  attribute  to  about  this  period  (90-100 
A.  D.)  the  epistles  of  James  and  Jude,  of  which  only  the  latter 
concerns  itself  specifically  with  the  outbreak  of  heresy, 
though  both  reflect  the  same  type  of  conservatism  as  Hegesip- 
pus, for  whom  the  Jerusalem  church  is  the  bulwark  of  true 
orthodoxy  by  virtue  of  its  unbroken  succession  of  a])Ostles, 
elders,  witnesses,  and  kindred  of  the  Lord.  The  authenticity 
of  the  superscriptions  "James,  a  servant  of  God,  and  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  unto  the  twelve  tribes  which  are  of  the 
Dispersion,""*  and  "Jude,  a  servant  of  Jesus  Christ  and 

1  Acts  15:  2.  3  Acts  21:18. 

2  Acts  8:14.  *  Jas.  1:1. 


i66  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

brother  of  James,  to  them  that  are  called,"  etc.,  is  much  dis- 
puted. But  whether  the  two  epistles — rightly  designated 
cathoUc,  or  ecumenical,  as  the  superscriptions  prove — were 
actually  written  by  James  and  Jude  the  brethren  of  Jesus,  or, 
as  is  far  more  probable,  are  pseudonymous,  is  not  vital  to 
our  present  contention.  The  two  epistles  appeared  not  far 
from  this  time,  and  owed  their  acceptance  in  the  churches 
east  and  west  to  the  fact  that  Jerusalem  with  its  apostles, 
elders,  and  kindred  of  the  Lord,  in  particular  James,  and 
Jude  the  brother  of  James,  claimed,  and  obtained  in  greater 
or  less  degree,  the  kind  of  general  censorship  of  faith  and 
practice  which  we  have  seen  reflected  in  Luke,  Papias,  and 
Hegesippus.  While,  then,  these  two  writers  could  not  be 
expected  to  refer  to  John,  the  employment  of  these  names  in 
writings  meant  to  be  ecumenical  confirms  our  thesis  that 
Jerusalem,  not  Ephcsus,  still  remained  the  recognized  seat 
of  apostolic  tradition. 

Since  the  testimony  of  Revelation  is  the  matter  itself  under 
discussion  we  need  not  give  to  this  book  its  place  in  our 
chronological  list,  though  the  brevity  and  vagueness  of  its 
references  to  John  in  Patmos,  and  the  very  terms  in  which 
he  is  described,  "Your  brother  and  partaker  with  you  in 
the  tribulation  mid  kingdom  and  patience  {vTroixovr})  which 
are  in  Jesus"  ^  are  far  more  suggestive  of  the  Markan  than 
of  the  Irenaean  tradition. 

With  this  side-glance  at  I  Peter,  the  Synoptists,  James, 
Jude,  and  Revelation  we  may  consent  to  "pass  to  the  Epistle 
of  Clement  of  Rome"  with  Professor  Stanton. 

The  relations  of  the  church  in  Corinth  to  the  church  in 
Ephesus  were  of  necessity,  whether  geographically,  or  from 
the  history  of  their  founding,  intimate  from  the  beginning. 
In  95  A.  D.  Clement,  officially  representing  the  church  in 
Rome,  writes  to  the  Corinthians  an  epistle  half  as  long  again 

1  Rev.  i:  9;  cf.  II  Tim.  2:11,  12. 


THE  JOHN  OF  REVELATION  167 

as  Romans,  to  expostulate  with  them  for  having  deposed 
bishops  and  other  olTicers  who  had  been  "appointed  by  the 
apostles,  or  afterwanl  by  other  men  of  repute."  ^  What  sort 
of  attitude  towards  the  twehe  aj)ostles  was  characteristic  of 
this  period  might  be  inferred  from  the  book  of  Acts,  or  from 
Revelation  with  its  twelve  foundations  of  the  New  Jerusalem 
inscribed  with  their  names.  But  let  us  take  Clement's  own 
words : 

"The  Apostles  received  the  gospel  for  us  from  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ;  Jesus  Christ  was  sent  forth  from  God.  So  then  Christ  is 
from  God,  and  the  Apostles  are  from  Christ.  Both  therefore 
came  from  God  in  the  appointed  order.  Having  therefore  re- 
ceived a  charge,  and  having  been  fully  assured  through  the  resur- 
rection of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  confirmed  in  the  word  of 
God  with  full  assurance  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  they  went  forth  with 
the  glad  tidings  that  the  kingdom  of  God  should  come.  So  preach- 
ing everywhere  in  country  and  town,"  they  appointed  their  first- 
fruits,  when  they  had  proved  them  by  the  Spirit,  to  be  bishops 
and  deacons  unto  them  that  should  believe.  .  .  .  And  our 
Apostles  knew  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  that  there  would  be 
strife  over  the  name  of  the  bishop's  office.  For  this  cause  therefore, 
having  received  complete  foreknowledge,  they  appointed  the 
aforesaid  persons."  ^ 

To  explain  why  the  church  in  Rome  with  Clement  as  their 
agent,  should  have  taken  upon  themselves  this  intervention 
in  the  affairs  of  Corinth  at  the  very  time  when  Ephcsus,  so 
much  nearer,  so  much  more  closely  related  to  them  than 
Rome,  was  presided  over  by  no  less  a  character  than  the 
Apostle  John  himself,  and  why  Clement  should  not  so  much 
as  mention  John,  though  explicitly  referring  to  Peter  and 

*  Ad.  Cor.  xliv. 

2  With  this  general  statement  of  the  mission  of  the  twelve  compare  that 
of  Justin,  above  referred  to,  p.  70  f.,  made  the  basis  by  Sanday  of  a  claim 
that  Justin  uses  Mk.  i6:  20. 

^  Ad.  Cor.  xlii,  xliv. 


i68  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Paul — nay,  should  speak  of  "the  apostles"  in  general  as  if 
their  witness  could  only  be  known  through  their  successors — 
is  something  of  a  problem.  Even  if  it  stood  alone  we  could 
hardly  deem  it  adequately  solved  by  Professor  Stanton's  ex- 
planation, which  we  cite  in  full: 

"It  is  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that,  while  the  tradition  as 
to  the  long  life  and  later  labors  of  St.  John  was  substantially  true, 
there  may  yet  have  been  some  exaggeration  in  the  representation 
that  he  lived  'till  the  times  of  Trajan,'  that  is,  till  two  or  three 
years  later  than  the  date  at  which  Clement  was  writing;  and  even 
if  he  had  died  only  a  few  years  before,  there  would  have  been  no 
special  reason  for  Clement's  referring  to  him."  ^ 

That  is  all. 

While  the  silence  of  Clement  is  to  us  by  no  means  a  slight 
difficulty,  that  of  the  Epistles  of  Ignatius  seems  to  Pro- 
fessor Stanton  to  be  "far  more  serious."  We  may  take  his 
owm  statement  of  the  case  together  with  his  explanation: 

"In  writing  to  the  Ephesians  he  (Ignatius)  expresses  the  desire 
that  he  'may  be  found  in  the  company  of  those  Christians  of 
Ephesus  who  were  ever  of  one  mind  with  the  Apostles  in  the 
power  of  Jesus  Christ.'  St.  Paul  and  St.  John  may  be  more 
particularly  in  his  mind.  But  as  in  writing  to  the  Romans  he 
names  Peter  and  Paul,  why  does  he  not  here  name  both  Paul,  the 
founder  of  the  Church  of  Ephesus,  and  also  that  venerable  Apostle 
who,  according  to  the  belief  which  we  have  under  consideration, 
had  lived  and  taught  there  more  recently,  and  for  a  longer  period? 
In  the  immediate  sequel  he  mentions  Paul  only.  There  was  in- 
deed a  special  reason  for  referring  to  Paul,  because  Ignatius  saw 
in  that  Apostle's  stay  at  Ephesus  on  his  way  to  martyrdom  a 
parallel  with  his  own  case.  Nevertheless  the  notice  of  St.  Paul 
might  naturally  have  suggested  one  of  St.  John.  We  should  have 
expected  that  appeals  would  have  been  made  to  the  teaching  of 
both  these  Apostles  in  order  to  confirm  those  warnings  against 
errors  concerning  the  Person  of  Christ,  and  those  exhortations  to 

1  P.  165. 


THE  JOHN  OF  REVELATION  169 

unity,  of  which  Ignatius'  Epistle  to  the  Ephesiaus  and  others  of 
his  Epistles  are  full.  The  fact,  however,  that  he  does  not  use 
St.  John's  authority  for  this  purpose  cannot  be  pressed,  for  he 
does  not  use  even  St.  Paul's  name  in  this  way.  But  at  least  some 
personal  reference  to  St.  John  would  have  been  natural  in  writing 
to  the  Church  at  Ephesus.  So  too  he  might  have  been  expected 
to  recall  to  Polycarp  (in  the  Epistle  to  Polycarp)  the  close  ties 
which  bound  him  to  the  Apostle  John,  and  to  remind  the  Smyr- 
naeans  (in  ad  Smyrnaeos)  of  the  authority  which  their  bishop  de- 
rived from  this  connexion.  That  Polycarp  himself  in  his  short 
Epistle  to  the  Philippians  should  not  speak  of  St.  John,  in  spite 
of  the  personal  reasons  he  might  have  for  doing  so,  is  not  so  sur- 
prising because  the  Church  which  he  was  addressing  had  not 
come  under  St.  John's  influence."  ^ 

At  this  point  Professor  Stanton  breaks  off  his  considera- 
tion of  "the  silence  of  the  Sub-Apostolic  Age,"  admitting 
that  "It  does  not  seem  satisfactory  to  regard  this  early 
silence  respecting  the  Apostle  John  as  merely  accidental,"  but 
promising  later  to  "consider  whether  it  can  be  more  or  less 
reasonably  explained  consistently  with  the  supposition  that 
the  common  tradition  is  true."  This  later  consideration 
appears  on  pp.  236-238,  after  a  discussion  of  the  evidence 
from  Papias  and  Justin.  We  shall  again  be  compelled  to 
cite  at  considerable  length  in  order  to  do  full  justice  to  Pro- 
fessor Stanton's  loyal  attempt  to  grapple  with  the  difficulty: 

"It  appears  to  me  difficult  to  avoid  inferring  from  the  absence 
of  allusion  to  the  Apostle  John  in  writings  of  the  beginning  of  the 
second  century,  that  there  was  a  difference — which  it  is  a  matter 
of  great  interest  to  notice — between  his  reputation  and  influence 
then  and  at  the  close  of  the  century.  At  this  later  time  men  were 
fast  learning,  if  they  had  not  already  learned,  to  give  him  a  place, 
as  we  do  to-day,  among  the  greatest  masters  of  the  Christian 
Faith,  distinct  from,  but  not  inferior  to,  that  of  Peter  and  of  Paul. 

"  This  position  is  accorded  him  mainly  as  the  evangelist  of  the 

^Gospels,  etc.,  p{).  165-166. 


I70  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Fourth  Gospel.  Now  it  will  be  suggested  that  the  change  in  the 
estimate  formed  of  him  of  which  I  have  spoken  can  be  explained, 
if  we  allow  that  he  spent  his  later  years  in  Asia,  and  suppose  that 
from  this  circumstance  the  Gospel  which  was  produced  in  that 
region  was  mistakenly  attributed  to  him,  though  not  before  the 
middle  of  the  century.  Thenceforth  it  will  be  said  his  celebrity 
rapidly  grew.  It  should  be  remarked,  however,  that  the  different 
parts  of  the  tradition  are  closely  connected,  that  they  form  one 
whole  in  the  mind  of  the  Church  of  the  latter  part  of  the  second 
century,  and  are  attested  by  the  same  witnesses,  who,  if  they  are 
trustworthy  in  regard  to  one  point,  ought  to  be  so  as  to  others. 
And  I  beheve  that  we  may  view  the  early  silence  about  the  Apostle 
John  in  a  manner  which  harmonizes  more  fully  with  other  facts. 

"There  is  much  which  tends  to  show  that  the  persons  of  the 
Evangelists,  and  the  importance  of  the  function  which  they  dis- 
charged, were  for  a  time  commonly  lost  sight  of,  because  the 
minds  of  Christians  were  absorbed  with  the  main  contents  and 
the  outline  of  that  Gospel  which  had  been  at  first  orally  deHvered. 
There  is  no  sufficient  ground  for  assuming  an  exception  in  the 
case  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  and  its  author."  ^ 

With  the  statement  about  the  unity  of  the  Irenaean  tradi- 
tion in  the  latter  part  of  the  second  century  we  need  not  now 
concern  ourselves,  since  we  are  dealing  with  the  period  of  its 
beginnings,  when  but  a  single  factor  is  traceable,  i.  e.,  Rev. 
1 : 9.  We  will  also  pass  by  the  very  precarious  rule  that 
traditions  true  in  one  point  may  be  trusted  in  others.  We 
concern  ourselves  only  with  Professor  Stanton's  explanation 
of  the  early  silence  about  the  Apostle  John  by  the  lack  of 
interest  in  the  persons  of  the  evangelists.  In  this  there  is 
both  truth  and  significance.  But  the  significance  is  pre- 
cisely contrary  to  Professor  Stanton's  main  contention. 

Everything  depends  on  (i)  the  duration  of  that  time  when 

1  Gospels,  etc.,  p.  237.  From  this  point  Professor  Stanton  diverges  toward 
a  middle  position,  cautiously  suggesting  the  possibility  of  an  indirect  rela- 
tion of  the  Gospel  to  John.  The  substance  of  this  sequel  has  already  been 
cited.     See  above,  p.  69. 


THE  JOHN  OF  REVELATION  171 

the  importance  of  the  gospel  writers  and  their  work  was 
"commonly  lost  sight  of,"  and  (2)  the  beginnings  of  that 
later  appreciation  of  the  importance  of  authenticated  apos- 
tolic tradition,  which  we  Imd  reflected  in  various  forms  of 
editorial  supplementation.  It  is  unquestionably  true  that 
in  the  time  when  our  first  and  second  canonical  gos])els  were 
composed  the  need  of  authentication  was  not  felt.  The 
authors  merely  give  written  form  to  "that  gospel  which  had 
at  first  been  orally  delivered,"  and  are  content  for  themselves 
to  remain  nameless.  The  same  is  measurably  true  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel — apart  from  the  Epistles  and  Appendix — 
though  the  fourth  evangehst  does  not  altogether  refrain  from  a 
commendatory  address  to  the  reader  (20:30  f.).  The  change 
is  more  marked  in  the  third  gospel,  whose  author  seeks 
authentication  of  his  tradition  in  a  preface  placing  the  work 
under  the  patronage  of  "Theophilus,"  and  asserting  its  de- 
pendence on  "eye-witnesses  and  ministers  of  the  word."  In 
the  time  of  Papias  the  authentication  of  the  anonymous 
Matthew  and  Mark  had  already  become  a  matter  of  concern, 
and  apparently  of  no  little  difficulty,  to  judge  from  the  effort 
evinced  to  combine  claims  of  inerrancy  for  each  with  the 
utmost  tenable  degree  of  apostolicity.^  Eusebius  informs 
us — on  what  authority  he  does  not  say — that  "the  age  im- 
mediately succeeding  that  of  the  apostles"  was  distinguished 
by  many  attempts  to  deliver  the  gospel  in  writing  to  the 
churches  throughout  the  world. - 

1  Papias  is  concerned  to  show  by  means  of  the  tradition  derived  from 
"the  Elder"  that  the  discrepancy  in  "order"  between  Matthew  and  Mark 
is  immaterial,  since  the  preaching  of  Peter  was  reproduced  by  Mark  "with- 
out any  mistake."  Conversely  "the  Lord's  oracles,"  which  must  be  mainly 
drawn  from  Matthew  because  Mark  "had  no  design  of  giving  a  connected 
account  of  them,"  are  not  open  to  objection  on  the  score  of  disagreement, 
since  the  difference  which  exists  can  be  accounted  for  by  variation  in 
"translation."  Thus  Peter's  and  Matthew's  authority,  he  contends,  is 
justly  appealed  to  for  doings  and  sayings  respectively  in  spite  of  cavil. 

2  H.  E.  Ill,  xxxvii. 


172  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

We  have  seen  that  BasiUdes  and  Marcion  indirectly  witness 
to  the  same,  and  the  preface  of  Luke  and  Appendix  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  bear  similar  witness.^  The  multipHcation  of 
gospels  drove  the  Church  unavoidably  to  the  task  of  dis- 
crimination, in  which  the  standard  uniformly  applied  against 
the  innovations  of  Gnostics  and  other  heretics  was  always, 
and  necessarily,  the  apostolic  tradition.  Whether  it  be  Luke, 
or  Clement,  or  Jude,  or  Polycarp,  or  Ignatius,  or  Papias,  or 
Hegcsippus,  the  churchman  always  falls  back  upon  "the 
faith  once  dehvered  to  the  saints,"  the  integrity  and  un- 
broken continuity  of  the  apostoHc  tradition.  Eusebius  sim- 
ply treads  in  the  footsteps  of  Hegesippus  in  his  great  en- 
deavor to  "record  the  true  tradition  of  apostoHc  doctrine."  ^ 
Now  it  is  manifestly  true  that  in  the  early  years  of  the 
second  century  there  had  been,  in  the  past,  a  neglect  to 
authenticate  the  evangcHc  tradition  of  Matthew  and  Mark. 
The  "vain  talk  of  the  many  and  the  false  teachings"  com- 
plained of  by  Polycarp  were  giving  the  Church  most  pain- 
ful reason  to  regret  that  ignorance  of  which  Professor  Stan- 
ton speaks.  It  is  also  true  that  evangelic  tradition  oj  the 
Sub-Apostolic  age  such  as  Papias  refers  to  as  contained  in 
"books,"  from  which  one  could  "be  profited"  indeed,  but 
not  so  much  as  from  "the  Hving  and  abiding  voice"  heard 
at  the  seat  of  apostolic  tradition,  might  also  continue  for 
some  time  to  obtain  a  local  currency  without  special  im- 
primatur. "A  body  of  teaching  like  that  which  we  find  in 
the  Fourth  Gospel "  might  have  in  this  anonymous  way  a 
limited  circulation  in  the  province  of  Asia.  But  it  is  nothing 
short  of  a  complete  misconception  of  the  attitude  of  the 
times  toward  apostolicity,  and  toward  genuinely  authenti- 
cated evangehc  tradition,  to  imagine  for  one  moment  that 
an  Ignatius,  a  Polycarp,  nay,  actually,  a  Papias,  could  "lose 

1  Lk.  i:i;  Jn.  21:  25. 

2  Spoken  of  Hegesippus,  H.  E.  IV,  viii,  2;  cf.  I,  i,  i. 


THE  JOHN  OF  REVELATION  173 

sight  of  the  imjiortancc  of  the  work"  of  the  fourth  cvan- 
gehst,  sujiposing  him  to  have  been  in  reality  the  last  survivor 
of  the  apostles. 

No  better  corrective  could  be  devised  for  this  totally  false 
estimate  of  the  value  of  apostolicity  in  the  times  in  question, 
than  a  true  appreciation  of  the  history  of  Revelation,  the 
first  writing  to  claim  the  dignity  of  Johannine  authorship, 
and  the  effort  manifested  in  its  own  prologue  and  epilogue, 
as  well  as  attested  outside,  to  give  it  "canonical"  standing.^ 
We  may  well  turn,  therefore,  to  this  first  example  of  the 
Direct  Internal  Evidence. 

Fortunately  there  is  no  longer  much  doubt  about  the  date 
of  Revelation  in  its  present  form.  Whatever  may  be  said  of 
the  distinctly  Palestinian  elements  incorporated  in  the  main 
substance  of  the  Apocaly[)se,  modern  criticism  no  longer 
disputes  the  plain  statement  of  ancient  tradition  (Iremeus) 
attributing  the  work  to  "the  end  of  the  reign  of  Domitian." 
The  internal  evidence  of  the  letters  to  the  seven  churches  of 
Asia,  including  the  development  of  church  life  and  doctrine, 
the  growth  and  subdivision  of  heresy,  more  particularly  the 
conditions  of  persecution  and  martyrdom,  arc  conclusive  for 
a  date  not  earlier  than  90-95  a.  d.    As  Dr.  INIoffat  justly  says: 

"A  statement  like  that  made  by  ISIr.  J.  B.  Strong,^  that  'the 
majority  of  modern  critics  are  of  opinion  that  the  book  was  written 
in  the  time  of  Nero'  becomes  true  only  if  the  word  'not'  be  read 
between  'was'  and  'written.'  The  former  popukirity  of  this  date 
was  probably  due  in  some  degree  to  Kenan's  presentment,  in  what 
forms  the  most  brilliant  volume  of  his  series  upon  early  Chris- 
tianity, Vanlichrist  (espec.  chaps,  xv-xvii).  Besides,  the  lapse  of 
years  which  intervenes  between  the  Neronic  period  of  the  Apoca- 

1  See  the  article  "Der  Apokalyptiker  Johannes  als  Begriinder  des  neu- 
testamentlichen  Kanons,"  by  H.  W'indisch  in  Zts.  f.  ntl.  Wiss.  x,  2,  June, 
1909. 

2  Hastings'  Diet,  of  the  Bible,  Vol.  II,  p.  690. 


174  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

lypse  and  the  much  later  date  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  obviously 
helped  to  remove  some  of  the  difficulties  felt  by  those  who  were 
anxious  to  accept  both  as  works  of  the  same  author."  ^ 
Harnack  is  fully  justified  in  making  the  date  93-96  A.  d. 
for  Revelation  a  point  of  departure  for  his  great  work  on  the 
Chronology  of  primitive  Christian  literature.  He  has  un- 
fortunately allov^^ed  his  loyalty  to  genuine  ancient  tradition 
to  be  overborne  by  the  persuasions  of  an  ingenious  pupil.^ 
For  the  tradition  that  the  Apostle  John  was  its  author  is  still 
more  ancient,  and  even  Harnack  cannot  lend  antic{uity  to 
Eusebius'  notion  of  an  Elder  John  in  Asia.  The  statements 
of  Papias  and  Justin  regarding  the  authorship  are  doubtless 
based  on  those  of  Revelation  itself;  but  at  all  events  they 
show  how  purely  modern  are  the  attempts,  originating,  as 
we  have  seen,  with  Eusebius'  prejudice  against  the  chiliasm 
of  the  book,  to  find  "some  other  John  at  Ephesus"  on  whom 
it  might  be  fathered. 

Rev.  1-3  and  22:8-21  present  the  most  conspicuous  ex- 
amples in  the  New  Testament  of  commendatory  prologues 
and  epilogues  composed  for  the  purpose  of  equipping  a  book 
with  apostolic  authority.  They  testify  thus  at  once  to  the 
felt  need,  and  to  the  still  available  opportunity  afforded  by 
the  name  of  John.  For  in  this  respect  also  ancient  tradition, 
which  unanimously  dates  the  Apocalypse  before  the  Gospel, 
is  confirmed.  This  was  the  first  writing  to  claim  the  name  of 
John.  It  is  not  an  already  existent  Gospel  of  John  which  the 
seer  of  Rev.  14:  6  sees  in  the  hands  of  the  flying  angel.  The 
"commandments  of  God  and  the  testimony  of  Jesus"  are 

1  Historical  New  Testament,  p.  459. 

2  Harnack  has  indorsed  the  theory  of  his  pupil  Vischer  that  Revelation 
is  a  mere  Christianized  translation  of  a  pure  Jewish  apocalypse.  This  theory 
permits  him  to  subscribe  to  "the  critical  heresy"  of  attributing  Revelation 
and  the  Gospel  and  Epistles  to  the  same  author.  "John  the  Elder"  could 
be  author  of  the  latter  and  translator  of  Revelation.  The  theory  of  Vischer 
has  not  been  accepted  in  this  form. 


THE  JOHN  OF  REVELATION  175 

for  him  in  their  New  Testament  elements  an  unwritten 
gospel.  The  present  message  of  Jesus  is  sent  not  by  reference 
to  a  written  Gospel,  but  in  seven  Epistles  (already  a  fixed  in- 
stitution of  church  edification).^  It  concerns  itself  with 
maintenance  of  the  true  tradition  of  the  faith  against  forms 
of  heresy,  and  includes  directions  on  the  moot  points  of 
"fornication  and  meats  olTered  to  idols."  In  addition  to  this 
special  message  for  the  times  there  is  the  main  substance  of 
the  book;  but  this  concerns  the  future.  The  chief  danger  for 
the  readers  is  from  those  who  "deny  the  (bodily)  resurrec- 
tion and  (apocalyptic)  judgment."  "Prophecy"  is  therefore 
the  required  antidote;  only  it  must  needs  have  authority,  and 
for  this  the  method  had  been  stereotyped  since  the  Book  of 
Daniel  was  written.  The  author  of  Rev.  1-3,  22:8-21 
therefore  commends  the  accompanying  "prophecy"  to  the 
churches  of  Asia.-  The  author,  he  declares,  was  "John." 
He  does  not  call  him  an  "apostle,"  because  it  is  not  John's 
authority  as  an  "apostle"  {i.  c,  travehng  evangelist)  that  is 
wanted.  For  hke  reasons  later  writers  such  as  Papias  and 
Irenaeus  when  appealing  to  John's  testimony  to  the  Hfe  or 
teaching  of  the  Lord  refer  to  him  as  John  the  "disciple" 
(fiadrjTTj'i)  not  the  "apostle"  of  the  Lord.  A  more  immediate 
cause,  however,  for  our  author's  epithet  for  John  is  the  in- 
fluence of  the  work  he  edits;  for  the  seer  constantly  classi- 
fies himself  with  "the  Lord's  servants  the  prophets''^  (10:  7- 

1  The  fact  noted  by  the  Muratorianiijn  that  Paul  also  had  "addressed 
seven  churches  not  otherwise  than  by  name"  may  be  mere  coincidence, 
though  it  is  certain  that  the  letters  of  Paul  were  in  circulation  at  this  time, 
and  the  idea  of  the  glorified  Lord  employing  this  means  of  communicating 
with  the  churches  certainly  is  suggested  by  them. 

2  The  procedure  of  the  pseudonymous  writer  of  II  Peter,  a  writing  of 
about  the  same  period,  is  curiously  analogous.  This  author  reverses  the 
process.  He  incorporates  a  current  rebuke  of  antinomian  laxity  ( Jude  = 
II  Pet.  ch.  2)  and  himself  supplies  (chs.  i  and  3)  the  refutation  of  those  who 
"deny  the  resurrection  and  judgment."  "John"  was  the  next  name  of 
authority  after  "Peter." 


176  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

11;  II  :i8;  16:  6;  19:10;  cj.  22:  8,  9).  Nevertheless,  the  tone  of 
authority  assumed  in  the  prologue  and  epilogue,  the  simple 
"John  to  the  seven  churches  of  Asia,"  the  utter  non-existence 
of  any  other  John  who  could  be  thought  of  as  thus  addressing 
the  seven  churches  of  Asia,  should  be  conclusive  as  to  who  is 
here  meant. ^  It  docs  not  follow  that  the  writer  of  the  prologue 
and  epilogue  in  95  a.  d.  was  not  aware  of  the  martyr  death  of 
the  Apostle  some  thirty  years  before.  Rather  he  could  not 
have  ventured  the  attribution  if  the  Apostle  had  not  been 
dead.  As  suggested  above,  his  characterization  of  him  as 
"your  brother,  and  partaker  with  you  in  the  tribulation  and 
kingdom  and  endurance  of  Jesus"  recall  the  terms  of  Mk. 
10:36-40.  Whether  he  had  other  grounds  for  attributing  the 
"prophecy"  to  John  besides  its  Palestinian  origin  and  apos- 
tolic doctrine  we  cannot  say.^  He  holds,  at  all  events,  that 
the  "prophecy"  of  4:1-22:7  "concerning  the  things  which 
must  shortly  come  to  pass"  had  been  given  to  John  the 
Apostle.  Papias  and  Justin  follow  suit.  In  reality  the 
"prophecy"  speaks  of  "the  twelve  apostles  of  the  Lamb" 
quite  too  objectively  to  have  been  written  by  one  of  them, 
and  there  are  further  objections,  as  we  shall  see,  to  its  Johan- 
nine  authorship.  But  it  enunciated  the  true  apostolic  doc- 
trine, and  almost  certainly  had  been  brought  from  the  seat 

1  If  to  some  the  omission  of  the  title  "apostle"  still  seems  an  obstacle, 
no  difference  whatever  will  result  in  our  main  contention.  It  will  only  fol- 
low that  the  writer  of  the  prologue  and  epilogue  had  one  John  in  mind — 
probably  John  the  Elder  of  Jerusalem — and  his  readers  another.  There  can 
be  no  disputing  the  fact  that  for  five  generations  the  John  understood  was 
the  "apostle  of  the  Lord"  (Justin)  "a  great  apostle"  (Gaius).  Dionysius 
of  Alexandria  originates  the  notion  of  "some  other  John  at  Ephesus"  to 
be  author  of  Revelation,  about  255  A.  D. 

2  Of  the  four  disciples  who  are  given  a  similar  revelation  in  Mk.  13:3 
James  could  not  come  into  consideration,  and  Peter's  name  had  been  al- 
ready employed  (see  above  on  I  Peter).  John's  name  was  more  prominent 
than  Andrew's  and  had  besides  the  special  aroma  of  martyrdom,  as  sug- 
gested in  the  text,  to  fit  it  for  such  employment. 


THE  JOHN  OF  REVELATION  177 

of  apostolic  tradition  in  Palestine.  The  only  way  to  secure 
consideration  for  it  in  the  Sub-apostolic  Age  was  to  place  an 
apostolic  name  behind  the  anonymous  authoritative  "1"  of 
the  "prophecy."  The  api)roved  method  of  the  time  was  to 
supply  a  prologue  and  epilogue  continuing  the  first  person 
singular  of  the  anonymous  Palestinian  "prophet,"  and 
clearly  declaring  him  to  have  been  "John." 

If  John  the  Apostle  had  indeed  been  one  of  the  martyred 
"witnesses"  obscurely  adverted  to  in  Rev.  11 :  7-12,  and  was 
known  to  have  been  "killed  Ijy  the  Jews"  thirty  years  before 
in  Jerusalem,  this  only  fitted  him  the  better  to  be  the  "pro- 
phet" of  the  embodied  "revelation."  No  Christian  reader 
of  Asia  in  95  a,  d.  could  possibly  take  exception  to  the  rep- 
resentation that  such  a  prophet,  having  been  brought  to 
Patmos  "for  the  word  of  God  and  the  testimony  of  Jesus" 
and  "being  in  the  Spirit  on  the  Lord's  day,"  should  have 
been  supernaturally  equipped  with  all  the  local  knowledge 
necessary  for  his  messages  to  the  seven  churches  of  Asia. 
In  fact  the  letters  are  not  his  at  all,  but  dictated  epistles  of 
Jesus.  What  readers  in  Asia  in  95  a.  d.  would  understand 
from  the  representation  is  shown  by  what  the  Muratorianum 
actually  understands:  The  Apostle  John,  hcjore  the  coming 
of  Paul  to  Asia,  had  set  the  example  "in  the  Apocalypse"  of 
writing  a  canon  of  seven  Epistles  to  the  Churches.  As  the 
same  apostle  is  considered  by  the  same  writer  to  ha^•e  sub- 
sequently ( ?)  written  his  Gospel  from  the  midst  of  the  original 
apostoHc  group, ^  the  stay  in  Patmos  is  probably  regarded  as 
transient. 

In  modern  phraseology  the  sense  of  the  commendatory 
framework  of  Revelation  might  be  re])resented,  then,  as  fol- 
lows: "The  speaker  in  the  enclosed  'prophecy'  is  John,  one 
of  the  company  of  prophets  and  martyrs  to  whom  the  promise 

1  Cohortantibus  condiscipulis  .     .     rcvclalum   Andreae  ex  apostolis 

ut  recognoscentihus  cunctis  Johannis  dcscribcrct. 

P'ourth  Gospel — 12 


178  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

is  fulfilled  'if  wc  suffer  with  him  we  shall  also  reign  with  him,' 
one  who  has  shared  the  'endurance'  which  is  in  Jesus.  He 
received  his  vision  of  the  approaching  end  when  for  reasons 
connected  with  his  calling  he  was  temporarily  in  the  island  of 
Patmos.  It  was  preceded  by  seven  letters  dictated  by  the 
glorified  Lord,  who  spoke  in  vision  to  the  prophet,  addressing 
in  addition  a  special  message  to  each  of  the  seven  churches  of 
Asia."  This  commendatory  prologue  is  put  in  the  first  per- 
son simply  because  such  is  the  invariable  custom  of  all  the 
apocalyptic  writers,^  and  because,  seeing  the  writer  of  the 
main  body  of  the  work  spoke  in  the  first  person,  and  pro- 
logues and  epilogues  in  this  period  of  literary  history  were  not 
divided  from  the  substance  of  the  work,  it  was  necessary  to 
continue  the  first  person  in  order  to  secure  uniformity. 

But  some  still  ask,  Why  may  it  not  be  in  reality  the  same 
John  (Elder  or  Apostle)  who  actually  does  compose — for 
deliberate  composition  is  certainly  the  nature  of  the  work — 
both  "prophecy"  and  prefixed  "epistles"? 

We  are  not  directly  concerned  with  the  history  of  Revela- 
tion, and  cannot,  therefore,  review  at  length  the  investiga- 
tions of  ancient  and  modern  criticism  into  its  composition 
and  authorship.  It  may,  however,  be  set  down  as  an  axiom 
of  criticism,  established  already  by  Dionysius  of  Alexandria 
against  Nepos  the  chiliast  (250  a.  d.)  that  the  author  of  Reve- 
lation is  a  totally  different  individual  from  the  author  of  the 
"Johannine"  Gospel  and  Epistles.  These,  as  being  now  in 
debate,  we  may  designate  the  X  literature.  Those,  therefore, 
^  who  maintain  the  Johannine  authorship  of  the  X  literature 
must  abandon  the  claim  for  Revelation.^    A  second  proposi- 

1  The  Muratorianum  shows  doubt  as  to  whether  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas 
is  to  be  classed  "among  the  prophets  or  among  the  apostles,"  i.  e.,  as  epistle 
or  apocalypse.  If  the  latter,  it  is  perhaps  an  exception  to  the  otherwise 
invariable  rule  of  pseudonymity  among  writers  of  apocalypse. 

2  On  Harnack  as  a  seeming  exception  see  note  above,  p.  174. 


THE  JOHN  OF  REVELATION  179 

tion  almost  equally  axiomatic  concerns  the  composite  char- 
acter of  the  work.  Of  this  its  most  eminent  commentator 
speaks  as  follows: 

"It  seems  to  be  settled  that  the  Apocalypse  can  no  longer  be  ^ 
regarded  as  a  literary  unity.  Against  such  a  view  criticism  finds  * 
irresistible  ct)nsidcrati()ns."  ^ 

Even  more  obvious  than  the  indications  of  literary  patch- 
work in  the  "prophecy"  itself  is  the  separate,  but  by  no 
means  independent,  origin  of  the  prologue  with  its  "epistles" 
to  the  churches  of  Asia  (chs.  1-3)  and  the  epilogue  (22 :  8-21). 
These  are  written  to  commend,  indeed  in  a  true  sense  of  the 
word  to  canonize,  the  "prophecy"  among  those  churches.^ 
The  "epistles"  borrow  the  imagery  of  the  "prophecy"  for 
their  promises  to  the  faithful.  But  there  is  absolutely  no  con- 
verse relation,  as  there  would  surely  be  if  the  "prophecy" 
had  actually  been  received  as  represented.  The  instant  we 
cross  the  threshold  of  the  "prophecy"  at  4:1,  Asia  with  its 
seven  churches,  its  troubles  from  heretical  teachers,  its 
Balaamites  and  Nicolaitans,  its  greater  or  less  degree  of 
faithfulness  to  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  is  absolutely  lost  from 
view.  The  whole  interest  is  focused  upon  Jerusalem  and 
"Babylon"  in  their  mortal  duel  for  the  dominion  of  the 
world.  The  "seven  churches"  have  disappeared  as  if  non- 
existent; what  remains  is  a  "tale  of  two  cities."  The  author's 
horizon  is  limited,  with  all  the  narrow  absorption  of  the 
tyjjical  Jewish  apocalyptist,  to  Palestine  and  its  agonizing 
struggle  with  Rome. 

This  main  substance  of  the  book  is  nevertheless  repre- 
sented in  the  framework  as  following  immediately  a]ter 
the  vision  of  the  epistles  to  the  seven  churches  of  Asia, 
and  in  fact  forming  one  whole  with  it  as  part  of  the 
experience  in  Patmos.     Such  certainly  could  not  have  been 

1  W.  Bousset,  5.  V.  "Apocalypse,"  Ejic.  Bihl.  I,  §  32. 

2  Note  Uie  curse  (22:18-19)  pronounced  on  interference  with  the  contents. 


i8o  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

the  representation  if  the  "prophecy"  had  been  previously 
experienced  by  the  writer  of  the  epistles  in  Palestine  or  else- 
where. The  author  who  takes  this  alien  material  and  adapts 
it  thus  to  circulation  on  foreign  soil  can  only  be  employing 
the  transparent  devices  of  apocalyptic  fiction  exemplified  in 
scores  of  similar  "prophecies."  The  Ephesian  editor  is  con- 
cerned with  the  interests  of  the  province  of  Asia.  He  is  cer- 
tainly not  the  same  as  the  seer  whose  personaHty  he  assumes 
in  incorporating  his  "prophecy";  for  the  interests  of  the  seer 
are  those  of  Judaea  exclusively.  It  is  not  merely  that  his 
language  and  mode  of  thought  are  Palestinian.  The  Hebrew 
gematria  (13:18),  the  angelology  and  demonology  (12:7) 
might  characterize  a  Jew  even  after  long  residence  on  foreign 
soil.  But  the  whole  geographical  standpoint  of  the  "pro- 
phet" is  exclusively  Palestinian,  without  the  slightest  thought 
of  the  province  of  Asia.  "Euphrates"  is  the  barrier  against 
invasion  (9:14;  16:12),  "Armageddon,"  i.  e.,  ^legiddo,  is  the 
great  battle-field,  Mount  Zion  is  the  place  of  Messiah's  ap- 
pearing, the  \^alley  of  Hinnom  is  the  scene  of  the  vintage  of 
blood  (14:  20),  Jerusalem  is  "the"  city  (11: 13;  14:  20),  "the 
holy  city"  (11 :  2),  "the  beloved  city"  (20:  9),  and  even  "the 
great  (!)  city"  (11:8;  16:19).  "The  wilderness"  (12:6,  14) 
is  assumed  to  require  no  more  explanation  than  "the  city." 
No  other  can  be  meant  than  the  wilderness  of  Judaea.  The 
Gentile  world  is  to  this  writer  "  the  rest  of  mankind  .  .  . 
which  worship  devils  and  idols"  (9:  20).  Gentile  Christians 
are  "the  rest  of  the  seed"  of  the  Daughter  of  Zion  (12: 17). 
Messiah  is  "the  man-child  who  is  to  rule  all  the  Gentiles  with 
a  rod  of  iron"  (12:5;  19: 15).  The  salvation  of  the  world  is 
the  hegemony  of  Jerusalem,  standing  mistress  of  the  nations 
on  the  mountains  of  Judah  (21:  24-26),  while  to  the  twelve 
thousand  redeemed  from  each  of  the  twelve  tribes  are  gath- 
ered an  innumerable  company  of  adopted  Israehtes  out  of 
every  kingdom  and  tongue  and  people  (7:4-10). 


THE  JOHN  OF  REVELATION  i8i 

The  editor  has  frequent  occasion  to  interpret  for  non- 
Palestinian  readers  (4:5;  5:6;  9:11;  11:4,  8;  12:9),  and  to 
adapt  the  material  for  later  times  (17:10-11)  and  for  a 
wider  circle  (7:9-17;  15:3;  17:6,  14,  etc.).  On  one  occasion 
(19: 13)  he  introduces  his  own  distinctive  "Asian"  Christ- 
ology,  contrary  to  the  intention  of  his  "prophet,"  declaring 
the  name  known  to  none  but  the  Messiah  himself  to  be  "the 
Logos  of  God."  Verse  16  defines  it  to  be  "King  of  kings 
and  Lord  of  lords."  In  general  the  Christology  of  the  editor 
is  more  developed  and  metaj^hysical  than  the  messianism 
of  the  seer  (cj.  i :  18;  19:  i7,b,  22: 13,  16,  with  1:8;  5-  5;  12:  5; 
19:11-21,  except  13^).  Were  it  not  for  the  mitigation  in- 
troduced by  some  of  the  later  passages  we  should  ourselves 
find  it  hard  to  reconcile  the  narrow  vindictiveness  of  the 
"prophet"  against  Rome  and  the  heathen  world  with  "the 
meekness  and  lowUness  of  Christ." 

For  all  these  reasons,  and  many  more  which  cannot  be 
here  enumerated,  it  is  impossible  to  admit  the  Ephesian 
editor's  identification  of  the  Palestinian  "])rophet"  with  the 
Apostle  John,  and  of  himself  with  both.  The  seer  is  not  an 
apostle,  nor  an  immediate  disciple  of  Jesus,  and  does  not 
claim  to  be.  He  looks  back  upon  "the  twelve  apostles  of 
the  Lamb"  (21:14)  as  great  names  of  the  past.  They  and 
the  martyrs  have  borne  their  testimony  and  gone  to  their 
reward  (12:11).  Two  great  martyrs  in  particular  stand  out, 
to  his  mind,  among  those  whose  blood  cries  aloud  for  ven- 
geance (6:10,  11).  Their  bodies  had  lain  unburied  in  the 
streets  of  Jerusalem  (11:8),  and  we  have  seen  some  reason 
to  think  that  one  of  these  was  himself  John  the  son  of 
Zebedee.  The  Ephesian  editor  who  places  this  Palestinian 
apocalypse  in  the  mouth  of  "John"  in  the  island  of  Patmos, 
after  a  vision  exclusively  concerned  with  the  seven  churches  of 
Asia,  may  or  may  not  have  known  of  "some  other  John"  in 
Palestine.    All  his  readers  at  least,  for  more  than  a  century, 


i82  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

took  him  to  mean  the  Apostle  John.  He  certainly  was  not 
himself  that  Apostle.  The  representation  that  John  "saw 
and  heard  these  things"  in  Patmos  is  therefore  a  literary  fic- 
tion, comparatively  harmless  in  95  a.  d.,  momentous  for  later 
times,  when  the  battle  of  chihasts  and  anti-chiliasts  was 
waged,  first  in  Asia,  later  in  Alexandria,  over  the  authority  of 
this  book,  and  men  began  to  argue  about  the  personality  of 
the  author  and  his  relations  to  "the  churches  of  Asia."  At 
first  men  like  Papias  and  Justin  only  insisted  that  the  book 
was  a^i(nri(TT69,  and  that  the  revelation  had  been  "granted 
to  one  of  ourselves,  a  man  named  John,  an  apostle  of  the 
Lord,"  leaving  the  question  more  or  less  open  of  the  alleged 
visit  to  Patmos.  The  tradition  of  a  residence  of  John  in 
Ephesus,  travehng  as  a  kind  of  patriarch  among  the  seven 
churches  of  Asia,  grew  up  later,  and  upon  the  basis  of  Rev. 
1-4,  in  combination  with  H  Jn.  12;  HI  Jn.  12,  13. 

"It  was  at  this  time  (the  close  of  Domitian's  persecution)  that 
the  Apostle  John  returned  from  his  banishment  in  the  island  and 
took  up  his  abode  at  Ephesus,  according  to  an  ancient  Christian 
tradition."  ^ 

The  tradition  was  indeed  already  "  ancient "  to  Eusebius 
(325  A.  D.),  but  it  belongs  to  the  days  of  prologues,  epilogues, 
argumenta,  and  subscriptions,  when  men  studied  the  contents 
of  their  canonized  writings  for  proofs  of  apostoHc  authorship, 
and  to  learn  "from  what  place,  on  what  occasion  they  were 
written."  ^  For  all  the  period  from  Paul's  own  departure 
from  x\sia  down  to  that  in  which  Papias  and  Justin  are  found 
defending  Revelation  against  those  who  "deny  the  resurrec- 
tion and  judgment,"  the  testimony  of  every  writer  is  adverse 
to  the   Irenaean  representation;  whether  by  silence  where 

1  Eusebius,  H.  E.  Ill,  xx,  ii.  The  "ancient  Christian  tradition"  is 
perhaps  that  of  Prochorus  based  on  the  Leucian  Acts  of  John  which  repre- 
sent John  as  going  to  Asia  from  Patmos.     Cf.  Tertullian,  Praescr.  xxxvi. 

2  Muratoriamim  on  the  letters  of  Paul. 


THP:  JOHN  OF  REVELATION  183 

silence  is  unaccountable  on  the  assumptions  of  the  tradition; 
by  direct  statement  like  that  of  PajMas  concerning  the  murder 
of  John  by  the  Jews;  or  by  indirect  reference,  as  in  Mark  and 
in  the  Lukan  and  later  references  to  Jerusalem  as  scat  of  the 
true  ai)OStoHc  tradition.  Even  the  author  of  the  prologue 
and  epilogue  of  Revelation  himself,  by  his  very  concei)tion  of 
"John"  as  prophet  and  martyr,  "partaker  of  the  tribulation 
and  kingdom  and  endurance  which  are  in  Jesus,"  brought  to 
Patmos  and  made  the  mouthpiece  of  "epistles"  from  the 
glorified  Lord  to  the  Asian  churches,  confirms  the  Markan 
rather  than  the  Irena^an  tradition. 

Other  influences  contributed,  as  we  shall  sec,  particularly 
in  the  rapidly  developing  field  of  the  epilogues  and  argu- 
menta,  to  the  growth  of  the  legend^of  John  in  Asia.  Poly- 
carp,  who  in  his  own  epistle  looks  back  not  to  John,  but  to 
Paul  as  the  source  of  apostoHc  teaching,  became  instru- 
mental, through  the  part  he  was  called  upon  to  play  in  an- 
other great  interecclesiastical  controversy,  toward  the  further 
development  of  the  legend;  but  its  true  starting-point,  as 
contemporary  references  show,  is  in  the  literary  fiction  by 
which  the  Ephesian  editor  of  the  Palestinian  book  of  "pro- 
phecy" sought  to  give  it  currency  and  canonicity  among  the 
churches  of  Asia. 


CHAPTER  VII 

EPISTLES  AND  APPENDIX — THEIR  RELATION  TO  ONE  ANOTHER 
AND    TO    THE   GOSPEL 

The  second  factor  of  the  Direct  Internal  Evidence  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  is  that  of  editorial  attachments  to  the  Gospel 
itself,  intended  to  commend  it  to  the  pubHc  and  to  enhance 
its  authority.  Lightfoot  held  that  I  John  "was  in  all  hkeli- 
hood  written  at  the  same  time  with  and  attached  to  the 
Gospel."  ^  If  so,  it  has  been  displaced  by  another  epilogue, 
whose  ascription  of  the  Gospel  to  John,  while  still  veiled, 
approaches  more  nearly  to  the  standard  of  the  canon-makers 
of  Rome  in  150-175  a,  d.  Here,  then,  are  two  stages  in  the 
development  of  the  tradition  as  to  the  apostohc  authorship. 
First  John  surveys  the  Gospel  and  commends  its  witness  as 
"true"  against  "the  false  prophets  which  are  gone  out  into 
the  world,"  much  as  the  "epistles  to  the  churches"  had  com- 
mended Revelation  to  the  same  circle.  The  message  it  con- 
tained concerning  the  incarnate  Logos,  the  Word  of  life;  not 
a  mere  emanation,  but  "seen  and  handled";  not  coming  "by 
water  only,  but  by  water  and  by  blood";  its  law  of  love,  a 
practical  commandment  of  ethical  application,  not  a  mere 
gnosis  of  emancipation,  are  the  true  gospel  of  Jesus,  as  against 
the  denials  of  docetists  and  antinomians.  First  John  thus 
takes  the  same  polemic  view  of  the  bearing  of  the  Gospel  as 
Irenffius  and  the  later  fathers,  except  that  it  does  not  specifi- 
cally mention  Cerinthus.    As  Lightfoot  well  says: 

"The  close  association  (in  the  Muratorian  Canon)  of  the  two 

1  Bibl.  Essays,  p.  63.    He  further  develops  this  view  on  p.  198. 

184 


EPISTLES  AND  APPENDIX  185 

Johannine  writings  (John  and  I  John)  warrants  the  inference  that 
the  author  of  the  Canon  treated  the  First  Epistle  as  an  epilogue 
to  the  Gospel.  And  this  in  fact  is  its  true  character.  The  Epistle 
was  intended  to  be  circulated  with  the  Gospel.  This  accounts  for 
its  abrupt  commencement,  which  is  to  be  explained  as  a  reference 
to  the  Gospel  which  in  one  sense  i)receded  it.  This  accounts  like- 
wise for  the  allusion  to  the  water  and  the  blood  (I  John  5:6  f.) 
as  the  witnesses  to  the  reality  of  Christ's  human  nature,  the 
counterpart  of  the  statement  in  the  Gospel  narrative  (19:35)."^ 

Lightfoot  might  ha\-e  added  thai  the  Muratorianum  probably 
made  the  same  "association"  between  the  Gospel  of  Mark 
and  I  Peter,  which  in  the  name  of  that  apostle  assures  the 
persecuted  churches  of  Asia  Minor  that  "this  is  the  true 
grace  of  God;"  and  that  the  so-called  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
follows  with  the  same  "abrupt  commencement"  upon  the 
instrumentum  Paulinum.  The  idea,  however,  of  treating 
these  writings  as  epistles  of  commendation  intended  to  ac- 
company the  Gospel  of  Mark  and  the  Epistles  of  Paul  re- 
spectively had  not  suggested  itself  to  Lightfoot,  although  the 
omission  of  all  reference  to  them  in  the  Muratorianum,  un- 
less I  Peter  was  mentioned  in  connection  with  Mark,  sug- 
gests that  they  may  have  been  so  considered.^  The  Codex 
Bezae  before  its  mutilation  placed,  as  is  well  known,  III  Jn., 

1  Bibl.  Essays,  p.  19S. 

2  Support  for  it  may  also  be  found  in  Papias'  reference  to  a  statement  of 
his  own  (not  the  Elder's)  concerning  Mark's  relation  to  Peter.  "For  he 
(Mark)  was  not  a  follower  of  the  Lord,  but  afterwards,  as  I  said,  of  Peter." 
Harnack  {Zis.f.  nil.  W.  Ill,  1902,  pp.  159-163)  properly  refuses  to  admit 
Zahn's  contention  for  a  Papias  extract  in  Eusebius,  H.  E.  II,  xv.  The 
infinitives,  tou  Sk  Mdp/coi;  fivrjuoveveiv  rbv  JUrpov  .  .  .  arjualveiv  t4  are 
dependent  grammatically  on  to<tovtov  eiri\aij.\j/ev  .  .  .  iis  kt\.  But 
Eusebius  would  not  thus  glide  into  the  form  of  indirect  discourse  if  he  were 
not  consciously  reproducing  the  traditional  argument.  It  is  therefore  not 
unreasonable  to  accept,  as  conjecture  only,  Zahn's  suggestion  that  the  "testi- 
mony from  I  Peter"  found  by  Eusebius  in  Papias  was  really  I  Pt.  5:13,  and 
that  the  subsequent  development  of  the  tradition  connecting  the  Gospel  of 
Mark  with  Peter  rests  upon  this  basis. 


i86  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

and  therefore  probably  all  three  Johannine  epistles,  immedi- 
ately before  Acts,  an  indication  that  the  association  con- 
tinued, in  the  case  of  these  epistles  at  least,  for  a  long  period.^ 
What,  then,  is  the  internal  relation  of  the  Johannine 
Epistles  to  the  Gospel?  Who  are  they  who  write  this  com- 
mendation of  the  message,  alternating  between  "we"  and 
"I"? — Like  the  group  Ephesians-Colossians-Philemon  cur- 
rent in  this  same  region  we  have  (i)  a  general  epistle  (I  Jn.), 
(2)  a  special  church  epistle  (H  John),  and  (3)  a  personal 
epistle  (in  Jn.).  The  individuaHty  of  the  writer  comes  out 
most  strongly,  as  we  might  expect,  in  the  last.  He  is  an  elder 
in  an  orthodox  church,  probably  that  of  Ephesus.  He  is 
doubtless  well  known  to  "Gaius,"  whose  good  offices  he  be- 
speaks for  the  bringing  of  his  message  before  the  church 
(III  Jn.  9).  Gaius,  then,  is  his  Maecenas,  fulfilling  the  office 
Theophilus  fulfils  for  Luke.  Certain  messengers  are  the 
bearers  of  his  writings,  and  Gaius  is  to  promote  the  work  of 
these.  Curiously  "the  Elder"  gives  himself  no  name,  either 
because  it  was  needless,  or  because  his  real  name  would  have 
detracted  from  the  authority  of  the  writings  he  would  put  in 
circulation  rather  than  add  to  it.  For  while  he  seems  to 
occupy  a  position  of  some  authority  in  the  church,  it  is  by  no 
means  undisputed.  "Diotrephes  who  loveth  to  have  the  pre- 
eminence among  them"  will  not  receive  the  writer  nor  his 
messengers  or  message.  And  Diotrephes  is  a  bishop  of  some 
standing,  for  he  "casts  out  of  the  church"  those  who  take  the 
Elder's  part.  One  of  those  who  seems  to  have  suffered  for 
this  reason  is  "Demetrius."  Demetrius  has  the  witness  of 
all.     The  author  and  his  friends  bear  witness,  and  Gaius 

1  The  present  order  of  D  is  Matthew,  John,  Luke,  Mark,  Acts.  But  as 
Nestle  shows  {Einf.  i.  d.  Gr.  NT.,  p.  56)  this  is  not  original.  The  fragment 
of  III  Jn.  which  in  the  Latin  column  remains  attached  to  the  beginning 
of  Acts  shows  that  the  four  gospels  had  originally  the  usual  order,  John  being 
followed  by  I-in  Jn. 


EPISTLES  AND  APPENDIX  187 

"  knows  that  their  witness  is  true."  Such  is  the  conclusion  of 
the  epilogue  which  consists  of  the  three  e])istles,  manifestly 
of  the  same  Asian  proxenance  as  the  Gospel.  When  we  come 
to  examine  the  present  epilogue,  we  shall  see  that  its  conclu- 
sion (Jn.  21:24)  repeats  this  phraseology  and  gives  it  a 
special  appUcation.  In  short,  the  Appendix  follows  the  model 
of  its  predecessor,  making  the  personality  a  shade  more  con- 
crete.   But  we  must  return  to  the  Epistles. 

Second  John  addresses  a  local  church  in  the  name  of  a 
sister  church  (II  Jn.  13).  The  main  object  is  to  warn  against 
"the  deceiver  and  the  antichrist."  This  is  "they  that  con- 
fess not  that  Jesus  Christ  cometh  in  the  flesh,"  in  fact  the 
same  docetists  opposed  by  Ignatius.  Forgetfulness  of  the 
fact  that  Christ  has  also  a  Iau>,  the  new  commandment  of 
love,  is  the  other  occasion  of  warning.  As  in  III  Jn.  the 
writer's  personality  is  allowed  to  appear  to  this  extent,  that 
he  hopes  for  the  further  privilege  of  a  personal  presentation 
of  his  message. 

First  John  is  absolutely  general.  Those  addressed  are 
"children,"  "young  men,"  and  "fathers"  everywhere.  The 
message  is  as  before  a  warning  against  "those  who  would 
lead  you  astray"  (2:  26),  and  the  essence  of  the  false  teach- 
ing is  again  neglect  of  the  moral  law  of  love  in  practical  ap- 
plication, and  denial  of  the  human,  historic  Jesus,  a  "Christ 
come  in  the  flesh."  The  author's  personahty  still  appears 
to  the  extent  of  employing  the  first  person  singular  in  the 
phrase  "I  write"  (or  "have  written");  but  in  speaking  of  the 
evangelic  tradition  whose  historical  trustworthiness  he  aims 
to  uphold  it  is  always  merged  in  that  of  his  fellow-witnesses 
in  the  Church.  The  form  is  always  ''we  have  seen  and 
heard"  ''our  witness,"  never  "/  have  seen."  In  fact  5:  9-12 
expressly  defines  the  witness  borne  to  the  Son  of  God  to  be 
the  inward  witness  of  the  Spirit  of  adoption,  which  is  neces- 
sarily common  to  all  believers  in  all  ages. 


i88  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

It  may  be  possible  by  indirect  inferences  with  which  we  are 
not  here  concerned,  to  draw  certain  conclusions  as  to  the 
personality  of  this  author.  The  ofhcc  of  "Elder"  which  he 
fills  implies  maturity  of  years,  as  well  as  his  use  of  the  Pauline 
expression  "my  Httle  children"  (cf.  Gal.  4: 19).  The  type  of 
language  and  the  use  of  the  term  "Gentiles"  (IH  Jn.  7) 
for  "heathen"  suggest  that  Hke  nearly  all  church  teachers 
of  this  period  he  was  a  Jew.  But  so  far  as  direct  claim  to  be 
the  Apostle  John  is  concerned  it  is  conspicuous  only  by  its 
absence.  The  writer  makes  the  utmost  that  he  can  of  the 
evangelic  tradition  of  the  Church,  asserting  its  historicity  and 
trustworthiness  against  those  who  "deny  that  Jesus  is  the 
Christ"  (2: 18-23).  His  test  of  the  true  teaching  against  the 
antichrist  of  false  prophecy  that  is  gone  out  into  the  world  is 
that  "every  spirit  which  confesscth  that  Jesus  Christ  is  come 
in  the  flesh  is  of  God"  (4:  2).  For  this  reason  he  leaves  no 
device  of  rhetoric  unemployed  to  heighten  the  authority  and 
authenticity  of  the  witness  of  the  incarnation.  But  just  this 
fact  is  fatal  to  the  idea  that  he  is  the  last  survivor  of  the 
apostolic  college,  the  special  eye-witness  and  intimate  of 
Jesus.  How  is  it  credible  that  the  Apostle  John  instead  of 
simply  saying,  "I,  John,  am  he  that  heard  and  saw  these 
things"  should  seek  to  bolster  his  own  authority  against  op- 
ponents like  Diotrephcs  and  his  adherents,  by  appeal  to  such 
unknown  names  as  "  Gaius"  and  "  Demetrius"  ?  Why  should 
he  conceal  his  own  direct  first-hand  knowledge  by  merging 
his  personal  testimony  in  the  general  witness  borne  by  the 
Spirit  in  the  Church  and  all  its  teachers?  Why  should  he 
call  himself  "the  Elder"  and  not  "an  apostle  of  Jesus  Christ," 
unless  because  he  was  simply  an  elder  and  not  an  apostle  ? 

It  is  indeed  quite  possible  that  Lightfoot  was  mistaken  in 
his  very  confident  assertion  that  "the  Epistle  was  intended  to 
be  circulated  with  the  Gospel,"  though  our  own  judgment 
confirms  the  opinion,  and  joins  with  the  first  the  second  and 


EPISTLES  AND  APPENDIX  189 

third  Epistles,  whose  history  is  inseparable  from  that  of  the 
lirst  until  the  time  when  distinctions  began  to  be  made  be- 
tween "the  Elder"  and  "the  Apostle."^  But  even  if  wc 
disconnect  Gospel  and  Epistles  the  result  is  the  same.  The 
writer  is  generally  admitted  to  be  the  same  as  the  author  of 
the  Gospel.  If  he  was  the  Apostle  John,  he  had  the  strongest 
possible  motives  for  making  it  known.  No  rational  motive 
has  ever  been  propounded  why  he  should  hinder  his  primary 
objects  by  thus  veihng  his  identity.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he 
could  not  pretend  to  higher  authority  than  that  of  a  simple 
presbyter,  but  rested  with  a  truly  Pauline  conviction  on  that 
inward  witness  of  the  Spirit  which  unites  all  generations  of 
the  Church  in  a  common  consciousness  that  Jesus  Christ  is 
come  in  the  flesh,  and  was  eager  to  give  widest  currency  to  a 
great  "spiritual  Gospel"  whose  key-note  is  the  Incarnation, 
then  such  expressions  as  those  of  the  Johannine  Epistles  are 
precisely  what  we  should  expect.  They  approach  as  near 
to  the  claim  of  real  apostolic  authority  as  candor  will  allow. 
Thci-r  mystical  merging  of  the  author's  personaUty  in  that  of 
the  Church  as  the  abiding  witness  of  the  Christ  manifest  in 
the  flesh  makes  the  utmost,  on  the  other  hand,  of  its  advantage 
over  its  opponents  in  the  matter  of  historic  continuity. 

Professor  Sanday  misconceives  the  present  writer's  posi- 
tion in  classifying  him  with  those  who  differentiate  between 
the  author  of  the  Gospel  and  the  author  of  I  Jn.-  There 
are  indeed  elements  of  the  Gospel  in  the  form  in  which  we 

1  In  the  fourth  ccntur)'  and  later  wc  find  II  Jn.  and  III  Jn.  counted 
among  the  avriXeydfieva  while  I  Jn.  is  one  of  the  o/jLoXoyov/xeva,  although 
all  three  are  certainly  by  the  same  author.  The  reason  is  that  I  Jn.  had 
by  this  time  become  so  inseparable  from  the  Gospel  as  to  share  its  claim  to 
apostolicity,  whereas  II  Jn.  and  III  Jn.  professed  to  be  written  by  "the 
Elder."  The  phenomenon,  therefore,  has  no  significance  save  to  show  that 
Elder  and  Apostle  were  by  no  means  equivalent  terms,  as  some  interpreters 
of  Papias  seem  to  think. 

2  Criticism,  etc.,  p.  57. 


190  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

have  received  it  which  are  later  than  the  Epistles,  and  which 
the  author  of  the  Epistles  could  not  have  subscribed  to. 
Such  is  certainly  the  Appendix  with  its  identification  of  "the 
disciple  whom  Jesus  loved"  with  the  writer  of  the  Gospel, 
and  suggested  identification  of  both  with  the  son  of  Zebedee. 
The  author  of  A  (if  we  may  so  designate  the  epilogue  con- 
sisting of  the  three  Epistles)  has  no  idea  of  the  sort.  Such 
are  a  number  of  passages  inserted  in  the  body  of  the  Gospel, 
and  generally  tending  to  accommodate  its  teaching  to  Synop- 
tic conceptions,  which  show  a  relation  to  the  Appendix,  and 
prove  that  its  author  was  by  no  means  content  to  leave  the 
writing  as  he  found  it  with  the  mere  addition  of  an  epilogue 
of  his  own.  The  discussion  of  these  internal  evidences  must 
be  deferred  to  a  later  time.^  For  the  present  we  observe  that 
on  general  grounds  of  style  and  doctrinal  standpoint,  as  well 
as  by  primeval  tradition,  Lightfoot's  judgment  of  the  intimate 

1  relation  of  Gospel  and  Epistles  is  justified.  The  substance 
of  the  Gospel  was  compiled  by  the  author  of  the  Epistles. 
There  is,  however,  this  important  difference,  that  in  the 
Gospel,  unlike  the  Epistles,  he  aims  to  reproduce  a  body  of 
evangeUc  tradition  not  peculiar  to  himself,  though  saturated 
with  his  own  personahty.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  not  a 
word  to  even  remotely  suggest  the  name  of  "  John."  All  that 
pertains  to  this  is  intimately  connected  with  the  Appendix, 
but  shows  no  relation  whatever  to  the  substance  of  the  Gospel. 
We  must  allow  that  the  author  of  the  Epistles,  if  he  really  was 
seeking  to  commend  the  Gospel,  has  indeed  gone  as  far  as 
real  candor  would  allow  in  the  suggestion  of  immediacy  of 
the  record;  but  of  pseudonymity  there  is  not  the  faintest 
trace.  So  far  from  obtruding  an  assumed  personality  the 
writer  of  A  goes  to  the  other  extreme  in  merging  his  own  in 
the  common  consciousness  of  the  Church.  The  common 
object  of  authenticating  the  tradition  is  pursued  by  quite  a 

1  See  below,  Chapter  XVIII,  and  cf.  my  Introd.  to  N.  T.,  p.  274. 


EPISTLES  AND  APPENDIX  191 

difTcrcnt  method  in  the  present  epilogue  of  the  Gospel  known 
as  the  Ai)pcncHx;  but  even  here  the  case  still  falls  far  short  of 

pseudonvmitv. 

•      '        ^  7 

It  is  conceded  by  ^Jl^ .scholars  that  "The  Gospel  was  origi- 
nally intended  to  end  with  the  twentieth  chapter."  ^  Even 
those  who  with  Lightfoot  and  Zahn  contend  for  identity  of 
authorship  on  both  sides,  admit  that  "the  twenty-first  chapter 
is  an  after-thought."  -  But  with  what  object  was  it  ap- 
pended? The  object  is  made  somewhat  clearer  when  the 
textual  corruption  is  removed  of  the  added  verse  25.  Tisch- 
endorf  rightly  rejected  this  addition,  absent  from  N*,  whose 
real  service  to  the  scholar  is  only  to  illustrate  the  morbid 
disposition  of  editors  and  scribes  toward  a  species  of  ap- 
pendicitis. Internal  evidence  abundantly  confirms  Tischen- 
dorf's  textual  judgment,  for  not  only  is  the  verse  a  mere 
exaggerated  imitation  of  20:30  in  a  style  much  inferior  to  the 
context,  but  this  context  is  itself  only  obscured  by  the  addi- 
tion.^ 

Omitting  the  spurious  verse  25,  chapter  21  ends,  as  already 
noted,  with  an  echo  of  the  conclusion  of  the  Epilogue  of  the 
three  Epistles,  "we  know  that  his  witness  is  true."  The 
words  are  certainly  connected  also,  as  often  observed,  with  the 
schoHum  of  19:35,"*  "He  that  hath  seen  hath  borne  witness, 

1  Lightfoot,  Bibl.  Essays,  p.  194. 

2  Lightfoot,  ibid.;  cf.  Zahn,  Einl.  II,  §  66. 

3  Lightfoot  with  characteristic  conservatism  writes  thus  of  verse  25:  "The 
last  verse  is  evidently  a  scholium.  Tischendorf  declares  that  in  the  Sinaitic 
manuscript  (X)  it  is  written  in  a  different  hand  from  the  rest  of  the  Gospel, 
by  the  diopduT-rjs  of  the  whole.  .  .  .  However,  as  it  occurs  in  all  the 
other  copies,  and  these  come  from  very  various  sources,  we  may  safely  infer 
that,  if  an  addition,  //  was  written  by  St.  John  himself,  or  by  one  of  his  im- 
mediate disciples." 

*  Cf.  Lightfoot,  ibid.,  p.  197.  "Through  the  main  part  of  the  narrative 
we  find  these  parenthetical  additions.  ...  At  length  (19:35;  20:31) 
there  is  a  direct  appeal  to  these  disciples,  for  whom  the  whole  has  been 
written." 


192  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

and  his  witness  is  true;  and  he  knowcth  that  he  saith  true 
that  ye  also  may  bcHcve,"  which  itself  rests  on  20:31.  The 
effort  to  authenticate  the  record  is  again  apparent.  But  what 
strange  obscurity!  Who  ever  heard  of  a  writer  employing 
such  ambiguities  to  make  the  simple  statement,  "I  myself 
saw  this"  ?  And  who  can  testify  to  the  content  of  another's 
consciousness  ("he  knoweth,"  etc.)  unless  that  other  has  him- 
self first  given  expression  to  it  ?  Sanday  is  inclined  to  follow 
the  extraordinary  exegesis  offered  by  Zahn  that 

"cKcTvos  (in  19:35)  points  to  Christ.  It  would  be  just  a  formula 
of  strong  asseveration,  like  God  knoweth."  ^ 

But  this  ignores  the  author's  manifest  desire  to  establish  the 
fact  upon  historical  testimony,  and  particularly  the  "near 
parallel  in  III  Jn.  12"  and  the  equally  close  relation  with 
20:31.  The  key  will  be  found  in  the  phenomenon  described 
of  the  issuing  of  water  and  blood  from  Jesus'  side,  and  the 
emphasis  laid  upon  this  particular  fact  in  the  A  epilogue 
(I  Jn.  5 :  6  ff.)  in  connection  with  these  Hterary  relations.  The 
author  of  the  "parenthetic  addition"  (19 :  35)  is  no  other  than 
he  of  the  Appendix  who  has  his  eye  not  only  upon  III  Jn.  12, 
as  already  noted,  but  also  upon  I  Jn.  5:  6  ff.,  and  Jn.  20:31 
as  well.  Only,  instead  of  being  content,  as  his  predecessor 
of  I  Jn.  5 :  6-1 1  had  been,  with  the  inner  witness  of  the  Spirit 
corroborating  the  historical  tradition,  this  editor,  whom  we 
may  designate  R,  aims  to  make  the  corroboration  individual 
and  concrete.  He  means  by  his  eVetw?  his  own  prede- 
cessor, who  with  reference  to  this  same  currently  reported 
phenomenon  had  testified:  "This  is  he  that  came  by  water 
and  blood,  even  Jesus  Christ;  not  with  the  water  only,  but 
with  the  water  and  the  blood,"  and  thereafter  (III  Jn.  12) 
"we  also  bear  witness,  and  thou  knowest  that  our  witness  is 
true."    Jn.  19:35  is  a  paraphrase  by  the  author  of  21 :  24  of 

1  Criticism,  p.  78. 


EPISTLES  AND  APPENDIX  193 

these  passages  of  A,  together  with  I  Jn.  5:7,  "It  is  the 
Spirit  that  bearcth  witness,  because  the  Spirit  is  the  truth." 
Viewing  his  predecessor  A  as  not  only  the  evangelist,  but  as 
identical  with  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved,"  if  not  the 
son  of  Zebedee  in  person  (21:24),  R  takes  the  witnessing 
"Spirit"  to  be  that  of  A's  authorship.  "He  (e'/cetyo?)  know- 
eth  that  he  saith  true"  is,  then,  in  the  view  of  R,  an  equiva- 
lent for  the  expression  of  the  evangelist's  consciousness  re- 
garding the  same  phenomenon  in  I  Jn.  5:  7,  "It  is  the  Spirit 
that  beareth  witness."  He  therefore  puts  it  in  the  present 
tense  (iKecvo<;  olBev)  ^  and  conjoins  with  it  the  phrase  from 
the  end  of  the  Gospel  proper  (20:31)  "that  ye  may  believe." 

R,  the  author  of  Jn.  21 :  24,  looks  back,  then,  both  to  the 
Epistles  and  the  Gospel,  identifying  their  author,  the  name- 
less "Elder,"  with  the  figure  designated  in  certain  passages  of 
the  Gospel  "  the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved."  What  was  really 
meant  by  this  expression  is  a  question  to  be  met  in  connection 
with  the  internal  evidence.  Here  we  need  only  note  that  out- 
side the  Appendix  there  is  nothing  whatever  to  suggest  the 
name  of  "John." 

But  verse  24,  we  arc  told  by  the  "defenders"  is  not  by  the 
same  hand  as  the  rest  of  the  Appendix.  In  this  case  it  is 
the  conservatives  who  resort  to  the  dissecting  knife,  and  the 
critics  who  maintain  the  integrity. 

For  Jn.  21:1-24  is  certainly  a  literary  unit.  Amputate 
verse  24  and  its  whole  raison  d'etre  disappears.  Maprvpia — 
"testimony,"  "confession,"  or  "white  and  red  martyrdom," 
to  use  a  phrase  fehcitously  chosen  to  express  the  double  sense 
of  the  Greek,  is,  as  we  have  seen  already,^  the  subject  of  the 
whole  paragraph,  verses  15-24,  and  is  illustrated  in  the  respec- 
tive fates  of  Peter  and  "the  discij)le  whom  Jesus  loved."    The 

1  Written  testimony  is  referred  to  in  the  present  tense.  Littera  scripta 
manet. 

2  Abo%e,  Chapter  V. 

Fourth  Gospel — 13 


194  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

latter  is  identified  with  the  Apostle  John,  not  explicitly,  but 
by  a  process  of  elimination  subtly  suggested  to  the  reader, 
who  thus  assumes  the  responsibiUty  R  seems  loth  himself  to 
undertake.^ 

In  symbolic  language  and  description  the  risen  Lord  is 
presented  in  the  act  of  imparting  two  commissions,  cor- 
responding to  the  two  senses  of  the  word  fiapTw^  and  the  two 
types  of  fjbapTvpia  illustrated  in  the  history  of  the  Church. 
Since  the  time  when  Paul  had  found  himself  "in  a  strait  be- 
twixt two"  to  "depart  and  be  with  Christ,  which  is  very  far 
better,"  or  "to  abide,  which  is  more  needful  for  your  sakes" 
the  Church  had  clung  to  two  promises,  that  of  a  share  in  the 
Lord's  glory  for  those  who  suffered  with  him  (II  Tim.  2:12), 
and  that  of  an  "abiding  witness"  to  "be  alive  and  remain  till 
the  Coming  of  the  Lord"  (Mk.  9:1).  We  have  seen^  that 
first  "red,"  then  "white,"  then  both  types  of  "martyrdom" 
together  were  attributed  in  church  tradition  to  the  Apostle 
John.  Here  the  functions  are  distributed.  For  the  first  time 
save  the  obscure  reference  of  Clement  of  Rome  ^  we  have 
distinct  allusion  to  the  martyrdom  of  Peter.  Joining  on  to 
the  primitive  Synoptic  tradition  of  Peter's  turning  again  and 

1  This  characteristic  attitude  of  R  toward  current  tradition  has  been 
observed  by  Lightfoot  with  his  habitual  acumen,  and  interpreted  with  his 
habitual  apologetic  tendency,  in  the  Appendix  B  to  his  Essays  on  the  Johan- 
nine  problem,  entitled,  "On  the  Conversational  Character  of  the  Gospel" 
(Bibl.  Essays,  p.  197).  The  instances  adduced  by  Lightfoot  from  1:41; 
2:11;  4:54;  18:13;  I9-34J  21:14,  and  21:  23  are  of  immense  "evidential 
value,"  as  Lightfoot  declares.  They  are  also  to  be  connected  in  our  inter- 
pretation of  their  significance,  as  he  further  notes,  with  19:35  and  I  Jn.  5:  6  ff. 
But  the  inferences  to  be  drawn  are  very  different  from  those  drawn  by 
Lightfoot.  These  phenomena  are  in  reality  the  specific  and  characteristic 
marks  of  a  redaction  which  aims  to  accommodate  "  Johannine"  to  current 
tradition. 

2  Chapter  V. 

3  Ad.  Cor.  V.  "There  was  Peter,  who  by  reason  of  wicked  jealousy  en- 
dured not  one  or  two,  but  many  toils,  and  thus  having  borne  his  testimony 
(fMprvp'^ffas)  went  to  his  appointed  place  of  glory." 


EPISTLES  AND  APPENDIX  195 

stablishing  his  brethren,  thus  retrieving  the  humiliating  fail- 
ure of  his  offer  to  go  with  the  Lord  to  prison  and  to  death, ^ 
our  author  indorses  the  general  verdict  of  the  Sub-apostolic 
Age  which  looked  to  Peter  as  having  received  from  the  Lord 
the  charge  of  chief  shepherd  of  the  flock,'  with  ap])arent  de- 
pendence on  I  Pt.  5:1-4.  But  besides  this  primacy  of  Peter 
which  R  does  not  wish  to  dispute,  and  which  is  ultimately 
crowned  with  the  glory  of  martyrdom,  there  remains  a  func- 
tion at  least  equally  vital  to  the  welfare  of  the  Church,  and 
assured  to  it  by  Jesus'  promise  of  the  "abiding"  witness. 
To  make  clear  in  just  what  sense  this  promise  must  be  under- 
stood, and  to  attach  it  to  the  person  of  "the  disciple  whom 
Jesus  loved"  as  none  other  than  the  writer  of  the  foregoing 
Gospel,  is  R's  aim  and  object  in  the  dialogue  of  verses  20-24. 
A  "following"  of  the  Lord  like  Peter's  in  the  sense  of  glorify- 
ing God  by  the  manner  of  his  death  had  by  some  been  under- 
stood to  be  the  fate  of  this  man.^  Others  "among  the 
brethren"  had  applied  to  him  in  a  literal  sense  the  promise 
"There  are  some  that  stand  by  that  shall  not  taste  of  death 
till  they  see  the  Son  of  man  coming  in  his  glory."  In  rcaHty 
Jesus  had  made  only  an  ambiguous  suggestion.  The  true 
sense  in  which  that  disciple  had  fullilled  the  promise  of  an 
"abiding  witness"  appears  in  the  Gospel  he  has  given  to  the 
Church,  the  Gospel  of  a  real  incarnation.  This  witness  is 
indorsed  in  its  own  consciousness  as  "true." 

If  such  be  the  sense  and  bearing  of  the  second  half  of  the 
Appendix,  what  is  the  object,  bearing  and  significance  of 
verses  1-14?  Here  too  there  is  manifest  employment  of  sym- 
bolism,''   and    "the    beloved    disciple"    is   also    introduced, 

1  Lk.  22:32-34;  cf.  Mt.  14:  28-33  ^"<^  16:18. 

2  Cj.  Acts  1:15;  2:14,  etc. 

3  On  the  sense  of  Peter's  question  in  verse  21  as  he  sees  John  "following," 
Kwpte,  oCtos  5^  ri,  see  above  p.  134,  note  i. 

<  Note  the  count  of  fishes  as  153,  verse  11.    Such  is  the  total  number  of 


196  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

though  less  prominently  than  in  verses  15-24.  Since  the  dis- 
covery of  the  fragment  of  Ev.  Petri,  which  breaks  off  at  the 
point  where  the  group  of  disciples  in  sorrow  and  despair  have 
returned,  Peter  at  their  head,  to  their  fishing  at  the  Sea  of 
Galilee,  it  is  scarcely  needful  to  point  out  that  this  story, 
counted  in  the  Appendix  as  the  "third"  appearance  of  Jesus 
to  his  disciples,  is  in  its  own  intrinsic  meaning  a  first  appear- 
ance.^ It  represents  that  Galilean  form  of  the  tradition 
which  in  Luke  has  become  completely  superseded  by  the 
Jerusalem  form  more  acceptable  to  later  believers  in  that 
the  "scattering"  of  the  disciples  and  flight  to  Galilee  (Mk. 
14:  28)  has  been  canceled,  so  that  there  remains  an  unbroken 
continuance  of  the  original  body  of  disciples  at  Jerusalem. 
It  also  becomes  apparent  as  part  of  this  process  that  Luke  has 
rescued  the  story  of  Peter's  new  commission  to  all  the  world 
symbolized  in  the  miraculous  draft  of  fishes  by  transfer- 
ring it  to  the  context  of  his  first  call  in  company  with  Andrew 
and  the  sons  of  Zebedee.^  R  in  Jn.  21:1-14  is  confronting 
the  same  problem  as  Ev.  Petri,  how  to  harmonize  the  earlier 
Galilean  tradition  which  revolves  around  the  manifestation 
to  Peter  ^  at  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  with  the  Lukan  form  revolv- 
ing around  the  sepulcher  at  Jerusalem  and  the  manifestation 
to  the  women  which  is  consistently  followed  in  the  body  of 
the  Gospel.  The  story  of  Peter's  commission  to  the  world. is 
to  R  indispensable,  because  if  room  is  t9  be  found  at  all  for 
the  general  circulation  of  the  Johannine  Gospel  it  can  only 

all  existing  varieties  of  fish  according  to  Oppianus  Cilix  as  quoted  by 
Jerome. 

1  See  the  note  above  (p.  194)  on  Lightfoot's  "Conversational  Character 
of  the  Gospel,"  with  references  cited. 

2  Mk.  1:16-20;  cf.  Lk.  5:4-11. 

3  The  primary  character  of  this  form  is  attested  both  by  the  references  of 
Paul  (I  Cor.  15:1-11)  and  by  the  mode  of  introduction  of  its  rival,  Mk. 
15:40-16:  8,  as  something  which  had  not  at  first  come  to  light  on  account  of 
the  women's  fear  (Mk.  16:  8). 


EPISTLES  AND  APPENDIX  197 

be  by  process  of  adjustment  to  the  dominant  authority.  Now 
jn  the  body  of  the  Gospel  this  authority  is  placed  in  very 
marked  subordination  to  that  of  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus 
loved."  At  every  critical  point,  whether  of  the  first  calling 
(1:41),  the  supper  (13:21-30),  the  following  to  Calvary 
(18: 15-18;  19:  25-27,  35),  or  even  the  birth  of  the  resurrec- 
tion faith  (20:1-10)  another  steps  in  before  Peter,  This 
marked  subordination  of  Peter  to  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus 
loved"  might  promote  the  circulation  of  this  Gospe4  in  Asia; 
but  unmodified  it  would  be  well-nigh  fatal  to  its  acceptance 
in  Rome,  the  see  of  Peter,  or  in  Christendom  at  large.  The 
old  Galilean  form  of  the  tradition,  centering  upon  the  com- 
mission of  "Peter  and  them  that  were  with  him"  to  the 
world  tnust  receive  at  least  that  measure  of  consideration 
which  we  find  in  21:1-14.  Only  now  it  takes  the  "third" 
place  among  the  manifestations  (that  to  Mary  Magdalen, 
20:11-18  being  apparently  not  counted),  much  as  the  Markan 
"beginning  of  miracles"  has  to  give  way  to  the  two  of  Cana 
(2:1-12;  4:46-54).  In  the  readjusted  story  of  the  Mani- 
festation of  the  risen  Lord  and  Apostolic  Commission  "the 
disciple  whom  Jesus  loved"  still  stands  at  Peter's  elbow, 
somewhat  as  in  Acts.  He  docs  not  forego  the  faculty  of 
deeper  insight  which  in  the  Gospel  makes  him  first  to  know 
and  first  to  believe  (20:  8).  Even  here  (21:7)  Peter's  recogni- 
tion of  the  risen  Lord  comes  only  when  "that  disciple  said 
unto  him.  It  is  the  Lord";  but  apart  from  this  modicum  of 
tribute  to  the  hero  of  the  substance  of  the  Gospel  "Simon 
Peter"  is  first  in  everything.  He  leads,  "the  other  disciples" 
follow.    He  alone  draws  the  net  unrent  to  land,^  and  has  in- 

1  C/.  in  Acts  11:1-18  Peter's  prevention  of  a  disruption  of  the  Church 
after  the  bringing  in  of  Gentile  believers.  In  Acts  15  the  credit  of  this  is 
accorded  to  James  and  "the  apostles  and  elders  in  Jerusalem"  on  motion 
of  Antioch  through  its  delegates  Barnabas  and  Saul.  Peter's  part  becomes 
less  prominent  than  in  the  parallel  Acts  10:1-11:18. 


198  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

dividual  relations  with  the  Lord.  Concession  to  the  primacy 
of  Peter  could  not  be  greater  if  any  place  at  all  was  to  be 
reserved  for  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved." 

But  the  continuity  which  makes  a  unit  of  the  Appendix 
disappears  absolutely  when  we  attempt  to  pass  backward  to 
the  substance  of  the  Gospel.  Individual  "parenthetic  addi- 
tions" such  as  19:35  are  indeed  present,  proving,  as  already 
noted,  that  R  has  not  left  the  work  unrevised.^  In  particular 
the  relation  of  21:15-19  to  Peter's  offer  to  "follow"  in 
13 :  36-38  is  unmistakable,  and  we  shall  have  occasion  here- 
after to  scrutinize  it  in  connection  with  the  indirect  internal 
evidence.  But  quite  apart  from  the  mere  differences  of  style 
and  vocabulary  often  pointed  out,^  which  nullify  R's  attempt 
to  adjust  his  own  style  to  that  of  his  model,  there  is  abun- 
dant proof  in  the  Appendix  and  its  few  connected  passages 
that  the  writer  is  not  the  author  of  the  Gospel. 

Difference  of  authorship  is  implied  in  what  we  have  already 
shown  concerning  the  purpose  of  the  Appendix  and  its  en- 
deavor to  adjust  the  Lukan  tradition  of  the  resurrection 
made  fundamental  by  the  Gospel  proper,  to  the  (proto-) 
Markan,  or  Roman.  Precisely  the  converse  process  has  been 
attempted  in  the  corresponding  appendix  attached  in  all  save 
a  few  MSS.  to  the  Roman  Gospel  of  Alark.  Here  the  Gah- 
lean  yields  to  the  Lukan.  The  so-called  "longer  ending"  of 
Mark  (Mk.  16:9-20)  treats  the  resurrection  tradition  im- 
plied in  the  body  of  the  work  (Mk.  14:  28;  16:  7)  to  a  radical 

1  See  Lightfoot,  ibid.,  on  "The  Conversational  Character,"  etc. 

2  See  e.  g..  SchoUen,  Das  Evang.  n.  J  oh.,  1867,  and  Schmiedel,  Encycl. 
Bibl.  s.  V.  "John,"  §  40.  Among  the  more  important,  because  involving  a 
difference  of  conception,  is  the  return  of  the  Appendix  (and  the  interpolated 
section  2:13-22)  to  earlier  usage  in  referring  to  Jesus'  resurrection  (21:14, 
Jesus  "was  raised,"  riy^pdr];  20:9,  he  "rose,"  dv^ffrrj,  in  accordance  with 
the  idea  of  10:18).  Similarly  the  Second  coming  in  the  Gospel  is  spiritual 
and  inward,  not  a  manifestation  "to  the  world"  (14:  22,  23).  Here,  too,  the 
Appendix  reverts  to  the  ordinary  catastrophic  sense  (21:  23). 


EPISTLES  AND  APPENDIX  199 

readjustment,  forcibly  fitting  it  to  the  Procrustean  bed  of 
Lukan  narrative.  The  appearance  "in  Galilee"  to  "Peter 
and  the  rest"  has  been  remorselessly  amputated  and  a  modi- 
fied abstract  of  the  Jerusalem  tradition  of  Luke  substituted 
in  its  place  (]\Ik.  16:9-20).^  Less  radical  is  the  method  by 
which  the  author  of  Ev.  Petri  (160  A.  d.)  approaches  the 
problem.  Harmony  by  combination  is  the  method  of  his 
time,  commended  by  names  like  Tatian  and  Theophilus. 
Indeed  the  radical  treatment  exemplified  in  Mk.  16:9-20 
was  no  longer  ])racticable.  In  view  of  this  fortunate  dis- 
covery in  Ev.  Petri  of  an  attempted  combination  of  the 
Markan  and  Lukan  traditions  of  the  Resurrection  and 
Apostohc  Commission,  and  the  light  thus  thrown  upon  the 
motive  of  the  IMarkan  appendix,  how  futile  appears  such  an 
attempt  as  the  following  to  explain  the  addition  of  the  Ap- 
pendix to  the  Fourth  Gospel : 

"Though  an  after-thought,  this  chapter  was  certainly  written  I 
by  the  author  of  the  Gospel.  How  soon  after  it  is  impossible  to 
say;  but  there  is  nothing  in  the  style  which  requires  us  to  postulate 
more  than  a  few  weeks  or  a  few  days.  As  all  the  manuscripts 
without  exception  contain  the  chapter  and  there  is  no  trace  of  its 
ever  having  been  wanting  from  any  copies,  the  probable  conclu- 
sion is  that  it  was  added  before  the  Gospel  was  actually  pub- 
lished.- After  the  Gospel  was  written  and  submitted  to  his  friends, 
the  Apostle  may  have  heard  that  some  misapprehension  was 
abroad  respecting  himself,  or  that  some  disappointment  had  been 
expressed  because  no  mention  had  been  made  of  an  incident 
which  they  had  heard  him  relate,  and  which  would  naturally  be 
interesting  to  his  admirers.  He  may  have  then  consented  to  add 
it  as  a  postscript."  ^ 

It  was  not  because  he  thought  it  might  be  "interesting  to 

1  On  the  redactional  history  of  the  Roman  gospel  see  my  Beginnings  of 
Gospel  Slory,  IQ09,  ad.  loc. 

2  On  this  ver)'  fallacious  argument,  see  below. 

3  Lightfoot,  Bibl.  Essays,  p.  195. 


200  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

his  admirers"  that  the  author  added  a  new  statement  of  the 
resurrection  Appearance  to  Peter  and  them  that  were  with 
him  in  Galilee.  It  was  not  for  such  reasons  that  he  attached 
a  new  and  special  account  of  the  Apostolic  Commission  based 
upon  the  ancient  Roman  form,  distributing  its  responsibihties 
between  Peter  and  John,  after  having  previously  brought  his 
Gospel  to  a  formal  and  solemn  close  (20:30,  31)  on  the  basis 
of  a  pronounced  type  of  the  Jerusalem,  or  Lukan,  tradition, 
which  related  the  same  supremely  important  events  in  an- 
other interest.  The  author  of  the  Gospel  did  not  stultify  his 
own  work  by  representing  the  disciples  as  returning  to  their 
occupation  on  the  "Sea  of  Tiberias,"  ignorant  of  the  Lord's 
resurrection  (21:4),  after  he  had  previously  related  the 
overcoming  of  all  their  doubts  and  the  equipment  of  them 
with  their  great  commission  (20:22-23).  He  did  not  con- 
ceive himself  to  have  related  but  two  appearances  "to  his 
disciples"  (21:14),  rncrcly  because  "he  was  manifested  first 
to  Mary  Magdalen."  He  did  not  first  forget  that  Peter  was 
under  disgrace  (13:36-38;  18:15-18,  25-27),  then,  recollect- 
ing himself,  give  him  his  reinstatement  at  "the  third  time 
that  Jesus  was  manifested  to  the  disciples  "  (21  :i  5-19).  These 
are  additions  by  one  whose  conception  of  events  and  of 
doctrine  are  different,  tending  to  revert  toward  the  Markan, 
i.  e.,  Roman,  type. 

Of  course,  this  editor  (R)  adjusts  his  own  style  to  that  of 
the  work  he  edits.  Such  was  the  literary  method  of  his  time,  7 
Besides  the  instances  of  easy  imitation  adduced  by  Lightfoot 
and  Zahn,  there  are  cases  of  true  stylistic  affinity  of  which 
notice  has  been  taken  already  in  21:24  (cf-  19 -'35;  I  Jn. 
6:7ff.,  and  HI  Jn.  12)  and  21:14  (c/.  2:22;  12:33).  But 
these  occur  in  the  "parenthetic  additions,"  which  as  Light- 
foot  notes  are  characteristic  of  the  Gospel.  Real  agreement 
in  vital  points  of  conviction  is  lacking.  The  whole  object  of 
the  Appendix  is  to  so  adjust  the  respective  claims  to  au- 


EPISTLES  AND  APPENDIX  201 

thoritativc  commission  from  the  risen  Christ  that  room  may 
be  left  for  those  of  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved"  without 
detriment  to  the  acce])ted  claims  of  Peter.  R  does  this  on  the 
assumption  that  the  individual  so  described  is  John  the  son 
of  Zebcdec,  and  also  the  author  of  the  book;  though  he  shows 
a  timidity  in  advancing  this  claim  which  is  very  natural  in 
view  of  the  conflicting  traditions  regarding  the  fate  of  John 
alluded  to  in  verses  20-23.  ^^  ^^so  identifies  him  apparently 
in  the  "parenthetic  addition"  of  19:35  with  the  author  of 
I  Jn.  5:  6-8.  In  neither  case  can  the  identification  be  ad- 
mitted. 

A  single  plausible  argument  is  advanced  to  prove  that  the 
same  peculiar  attitude  is  characteristic  both  of  R  and  of  the 
evangelist  proper,  on  this  point  of  the  identification  of  "the 
disciple  whom  Jesus  loved"  with  the  son  of  Zebedee.  It  is 
said  that  the  same  "reserve"  characterizes  both  in  speaking 
of  James  and  John,  neither  apostle  being  mentioned  by 
name  in  the  Gospel,  and  the  Appendix  making  but  a  single 
passing  reference  to  "the  sons  of  Zebedee."  Why  this 
curious  silence  regarding  the  two  disciples  who  next  to  Peter 
are  the  most  prominent  in  the  other  gospels?  If  the  ex- 
planation of  a  pecuHar  "modesty"  on  the  part  of  the  apostlc- 
evangehst  accords  but  ill  with  the  extreme  degree  of  special 
honor  with  which  the  person  of  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus 
loved"  is  clothed  in  this  Gospel,  to  the  complete  over- 
shadowing even  of  Peter,  and  is  directly  antithetic  to  the 
bold  enunciation  of  Revelation  "I,  John,  am  he  that  heard 
and  saw  these  things"  (Rev.  22:8),  must  there  not  at  all 
events  be  some  cause  common  to  Gospel  and  Appendix  for 
this  peculiar  silence?  We  are  convinced  that  there  is;  and 
equally  convinced  that  it  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  fanciful 
conjectures  of  special  "reserve,"  "modesty,"  or  the  like,  af- 
fecting the  character  of  the  evangelist. 

The  silence  of  the  GosjX'l  ])roper  as  to  the  sons  of  Zebedee 


202  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

might  be  due  either  (i)  to  some  unexplained  and  inexplicable 
circumstance  affecting  the  original  composition;  or  (2)  to  a 
cancelation,  effected  in  R's  revision,  of  references  which 
seemed  to  present  obstacles  to  his  own  theory  of  the  author- 
ship. It  is  the  latter  supposition  only  which  can  reasonably 
account  for  all  the  phenomena. 

In  the  Appendix  R  appears  in  his  own  personality,  refer- 
ring to  the  evangelist  in  the  third  person,  as  distinct  from 
himself  (verse  24).  Accordingly  there  is  no  objection  here 
(verse  2)  to  a  reference  to  "the  sons  of  Zebedee."  Indeed,  the 
mention  of  them  is  indispensable  to  the  desired  identification. 
In  the  body  of  the  Gospel  he  was  compelled  to  proceed  other- 
wise. His  theory  required  that  John  in  speaking  of  himself 
should  employ  the  peri  phrase  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus 
loved."  If,  then,  he  found  references  in  the  work  to  "the  sons 
of  Zebedee  "  or  "  James  and  John,"  as  in  other  gospels,  it  might 
not  disabuse  him  of  his  belief,  but  he  would  be  most  apt 
to  remove  what  would  prove  an  obstacle  in  his  readers'  minds 
by  cancelation  of  this  feature.  That  this  has  in  fact  actually 
taken  place  is  apparent  from  the  altered  form  given  in  Jn. 
1 :35-42  to  the  Markan  story  of  the  calling  of  Andrew  and 
Peter  and  the  two  sons  of  Zebedee.  What  we  ha\-e  in  the 
"  Johannine"  form  of  the  story  is  not  simple  silence  regard- 
ing John,  or  James  and  John,  but  a  manifest  and  palpable 
gap  in  the  story,  such  as  would  be  produced  by  cancelation 
without  adequate  editorial  revision.    The  story  reports  how 

"  One  of  the  two  that  heard  John  (the  Baptist)  speak,  and 
followed  him  (Jesus),  was  Andrew,  Simon  Peter's  brother.  He 
findeth  his  own  brother  Simon  as  the  first.     .     .     ."  ^ 

1  The  accusative  {irpCorov)  is  not  adequately  rendered  in  the  English 
versions  ("findeth  first  his  own  brother")  and  gives  rise  to  frequent  misun- 
derstandings. The  author  is  enumerating  those  who  were  found  and  brought 
to  Jesus  and  begins  the  list,  as  we  should  expect  from  Synoptic  tradition, 
with  "Peter."  Peter  is  "first,"  though  another,  here  his  (elder?)  brother 
Andrew,  is  placed  before  him,  as  in  20:  8. 


EPISTLES  AND  APPENDIX  203 

In  its  original  form  this  Johanninc  version  of  the  Call  of  the 
First  Disciples  can  only  have  continued  with  mention  of  the 
next  on  the  list,  certainly  one  of  the  sons  of  Zebedee,  unless 
all  traditions  of  the  order  of  the  twelve  are  at  fault.  But  we 
have  simply  a  blank.  Where  the  story  is  resumed  after  the 
naming  of  Peter  (r/.  Mk.  3:16,  17)  the  point  of  interest  is 
already  past,  the  other  of  "the  two  who  heard  John  speak 
and  followed  Jesus"  has  vanished  utterly,  and  even  the  sub- 
ject of  the  verb  "he  was  minded"  with  which  the  narrative 
is  picked  up  again  remains  problematic.  Unless  all  Hterary 
indications  fail,  the  original  narrative  continued  somewhat 
as  follows:  "The  other  disciple  that  heard  John  speak  was 
John  (or  James?)  the  son  of  Zebedee.  He  also  findeth  his 
brother  and  brought  him  to  Jesus.  Jesus  saith  unto  them. 
Ye  shall  be  called  Boanerges,  that  is,  sons  of  thunder." 

It  would  be  unsafe  in  dealing  with  a  writer  so  inconsequen- 
tial in  narrative  as  our  fourth  evangeUst  to  argue  from  the  say- 
ing placed  in  Jesus'  mouth  in  6:  70,  "Did  not  I  choose  you 
the  twelve,  and  one  of  you  is  a  devil?"  that  any  complete  ac- 
count of  the  Choosing  of  the  Twelve  was  ever  actually  given, ^ 
Even  the  subsequent  role  given  to  Thomas  (11  :i6;  20:  24-29) 
and  to  the  two  Judases  (13:  26  ff.;  14:  22;  18:  2f.)  does  not 
prove  that  this  Gospel  ever  contained,  like  the  others,  a  list 
of  the  twelve.  If  it  did,  however,  its  variations  ("  Nathanael  " 
"the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved")  would  give  strong  motives 
for  cancelation  to  editors  anxious  to  avoid  conflict  with  other 
forms  of  the  tradition.  All  we  can  say  with  confidence  is  that 
the  sequel  to  the  paragraph  i :  35-42  proves  a  gap  at  just  the 
point  where  the  sons  of  Zebedee  ought  to  be  mentioned,  al- 
most as  clearly  as  the  preceding  context  implies  it.  It  cer- 
tainly was  not  Jesus  who  "determined  {■^deXrjaev)  to  depart 

1  Cf.  6:5,  where  it  is  assumed  that  the  multitude  must  be  fed,  although 
just  arriving,  and  ii:  2,  where  Mary  is  identified  by  actions  not  yet  per- 
formed. 


204  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

{i^eXdelv)  on  the  morrow  to  Galilee" — and  yet  did  not  go. 
Nor  was  it  he  who  "findeth  PhiUp,"  whereas  in  all  the  other 
cases  the  disciple-to-be  is  found  by  a  fellow-disciple.  The  fol- 
lowing clause  '^  Jesus  saith  to  him"  in  its  parallel  to  verse  42 
shows  that  the  fmder  of  Philij)  is  some  other.  It  may  have 
been  John,  or  James,  or  Thomas.  Whoever  it  was,  the  name 
is  lacking,  and  the  lacuna  cannot  have  been  intentional.  The 
inference  is  unavoidable  that  the  non-appearance  of  James 
and  John  in  this  Gospel  is  not  a  primary  phenomenon,  but  is 
due  to  some  process  of  revision;  whether  by  the  hand  which 
introduces  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved,"  perhaps  the 
author  of  the  Epistles,  or  by  R  of  the  Appendix,  whose  in- 
terest seems  to  be  to  accommodate  the  claims  of  this  nameless 
one  to  other  apostoUc  dignities,  on  the  assumption  that  he  is 
John  the  son  of  Zebedee. 

Other  proofs  of  a  profound  difference  in  standpoint  be- 
tween the  Appendix  with  its  connected  "parenthetic  addi- 
tions" and  the  substance  of  the  Gospel  must  be  deferred  to  a 
later  occasion,  since  they  would  carry  us  too  far  into  the 
domain  of  the  Indirect  Internal  Evidence.^  Enough  has 
been  already  presented  to  show  that  the  latest  of  our  gospels 

1  A  possible  solution  of  the  problem  Whom  did  the  author  of  the  sections 
which  introduce  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved"  mean  by  this  enigmatic 
figure,  as  against  the  identification  made  by  R  (21:  24?),  is  suggested  in  my 
article  "The  Disciple  whom  Jesus  loved"  in  the  Expositor  [Series  VII.,  iv. 
(1907)].  It  should  be  noted  that  the  phrase  on  p.  338  "a  very  real  man 
has  sat  for  the  portrait,"  i.  e.,  of  this  ideal  disciple,  has  given  rise  to  mis- 
understanding, as  if  the  meaning  were,  The  evangelist  is  cryptically  de- 
lineating Paul,  who  wrote  in  Gal.  2:  20,  "that  life  which  I  now  live  in  the 
flesh  I  live  in  faith,  the  faith  which  is  in  the  Son  of  God  who  loved  me,  and 
gave  himself  up  for  me."  The  artist  who  paints  an  ideal  figure  has  a 
model,  but  what  he  aims  to  delineate  is  not  the  model.  He  is  not  a  photog- 
rapher. He  paints  an  ideal.  Still  in  many  Madonnas  by  the  greatest  mas- 
ters the  model  can  be  identified.  "The  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved"  would 
seem  to  have  been  originally  (not  in  the  Appendix)  an  ideal  figure.  But  a 
key  to  the  ideal  is  not  unreasonably  to  be  found  in  Gal.  2:  20;  that  is,  it  is  in 
part  a  Pauline  ideal. 


EPISTLES  AND  APPENDIX  205 

forms  no  exception  to  the  rule  that  writings  of  this  character 
were  constantly  subject  to  editorial  revision  to  adapt  them 
to  wider  circulation,  and  especially  to  harmonize  them  with 
similar  writings  already  invested  with  a  quasi-canonical  au- 
thority. The  Appendix  to  the  Fourth  Gospel  bears  every 
mark  of  such  an  editorial  e])ilogue  and  is  Hnked  to  a  number 
of  "parenthetic  additions"  of  a  redactional  character  at- 
tached to  the  substance  of  the  Gosj)el,  The  hterary  usage  of 
the  period  was  not  to  distinguish  such  editorial  interpolations 
and  postscripts  from  the  text,  but  contrariwise  to  obliterate 
as  much  as  possible  the  marks  of  difference.  The  later  MSS. 
insert  their  editorial  addenda  in  the  form  of  brief  notes, 
separate  from  the  text,  the  so-called  "subscriptions."  ^  In 
other  cases,  such  as  the  longer  and  shorter  endings  of  Mark 
and  Rom.  16,  the  fortunate  survival  of  a  very  few  evidences 
from  the  earliest  period  proves  that  what  now  circulates  as 
part  of  the  text  was  originally  an  editorial  postscript.  Only 
one  solitary  manuscript  survives  to  prove — and  that  only  by 
a  difference  in  the  handwriting — that  Jn.  21:25  is  a  post- 
postscript,  while  in  Matthew  and  Revelation  textual  evi- 
dence of  the  process  of  editorial  recasting  and  supplementa- 
tion is  wholly  wanting.  And  yet  there  is  general  admission 
of  the  fact  in  these  cases  on  the  basis  of  the  internal  evidence 
alone.  In  short  the  further  back  we  go  toward  precanonical 
conditions  the  larger  are  the  editorial  liberties  thus  taken. 

Back  of  the  Appendix  itself,  presupposed  and  emj)loyed 
by  it,  though  now  separated  from  the  Gospel,  is  another 
editorial  framework,  or  epilogue  of  commendation,  certainly 
of  Asian  origin,  consisting  of  the  three  "  Johannine"  epistles. 
The  method  may  have  been  suggested  by  the  epistles  to  the 
churches  of  Asia  editorially  prefixed  to  Revelation,  but  this 
writer  (A)  has  no  thought  whatever  of  introducing  the  name  of 
"John";  neither  does  he  "address  seven  churches  not  other- 
1  For  examples  see  the  A.  V.  at  the  end  of  the  Epistles. 


2o6  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

wise  than  by  name"  ^  after  the  plan  of  the  current  instru- 
mentum  Paulinum.  He  follows  the  more  specially  Ephesian 
group,  Ephesians-Colossians-Philemon,  and  makes  a  real 
separation  between  the  letters  and  the  body  of  the  work.  Only 
when  adopted  by  R  the  Appendix  writer  (Jn,  19:35;  21:24) 
does  A's  editorial  "we"  (I  Jn.  i  :i-^;  111  Jn.  12)  seem  liable  to 
be  mistaken  for  a  post-mortem  publication  committee  of  the 
Ephesian  church  after  the  interpretation  of  Matthew  Arnold, 
or  for  a  group  of  "friends  and  disciples"  (Lightfoot),  or  for 
the  original  body  of  apostles  and  elders  in  Jerusalem  {Miira- 
torianum).^  In  the  Epistles  the  "we"  who  write  and  testify 
to  the  reaUty  of  the  historic  incarnation  are  unmistakably  the 
witnessing  Church;  because  the  Church  with  its  historic  and 
apostoHc  succession  is  placed  in  antithesis  to  the  false  witness 
of  the  antichrist  that  is  going  forth  into  the  world  with  a 
denial  that  Jesus  Christ  is  come  "in  the  flesh."  The  "we" 
of  I  Jn.  I  :i-3  must  be  placed  side  by  side  with  the  "we"  of 
the  Prologue: 

"The  Logos  became  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us  and  we  beheld 
his  glory,  glory  as  of  an  only  begotten  from  the  Father,  full  of 
grace  and  truth  .  .  .  for  of  his  fulness  we  all  received,  and 
grace  for  grace."  ^ 

It  is  not  a  publication  committee  who  are  intrusted  with 
this  witness  of  the  Spirit,  at  once  historic  and  inward.  It  is 
not  "a  narrow  circle  of  disciples  who  had  the  mental  power 
and  the  spirituaUty  to  understand"  the  Johannine  teaching. 
It  is  not  a  prelatical  clique  arrogating  to  themselves  a  special 

1  Muratorianiim.  Paulus  .  .  .  non  nisi  nominatim  septem  ecclesiis 
scribit. 

2  Such  seems  to  be  the  implied  interpretation  of  Jn.  21:  24.  Cf.  Johannes 
ex  decipolis  (discipulis)  cohortantibus  condescipolis  et  epi  (episcopis)  suis 
dixit.  .  Eadem  nocte  revelatum  Andreae  ex  apostolis  ut  recog- 
niscentibus  cunctis  Johannis  suo  nomine  cuncta  discriberet. 

3  Jn.  1:14-16.     Cf.  3:11  and  see  Chapter  XII. 


EPISTLES  AND  APPENDIX  207 

"apostolic  succession."  It,  too,  has  its  antithesis  in  the  con- 
text : 

"He  came  unto  his  own  (land)  and  his  own  (people)  received 
him  not.  But  as  many  as  received  him  to  them  gave  he  the  right 
to  become  children  of  God,  even  to  them  that  beheve  on  his 
name."  ^ 

It  is  the  "Israel  of  God"  as  against  the  Jews,  the  historic 
Church  as  against  the  false  prophet  of  heretical  antichrist, 
which  is  the  abiding  "witness  of  Messiah"  in  the  view  of  the 
writer  of  Johannine  Prologue  and  Epistles. 

From  this  "we"  of  the  whole  body  of  Christian  witnesses 
the  author  of  the  Epistles  plainly  differentiates  his  own  indi- 
vidual "I" — simply  "the  Elder"  whose  nameless  pcrsonahty 
is  known  to,  and  vouched  for  by  "Gaius,"  but  not  otherwise 
obtruded  on  the  reader's  attention.  There  is  no  pretense 
whatever  to  apostolic  authority,  though  the  effort  to  make 
clear  the  superiority  of  the  Church's  "abiding  witness"  to  the 
neologisms  of  the  Docetists  might  mislead  a  later  generation. 

Are  we  challenged  to  point  to  some  individual  other  than 
the  son  of  Zebedee  supposably  competent  to  produce  such 
writings?  The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  remains  a  standing 
warning  against  the  idea  that  none  but  immediate  followers 
of  Jesus,  or  persons  of  well-known  name  in  the  Church,  could 
produce  its  greater  Hterary  works.  But  let  the  challenge  be  ac- 
cepted. Why  should  not  this  nameless  "Elder"  be  the  same 
as  that  nameless  and  venerable  Elder  of  Ephesus  to  whom 
Justin  ]\Iartyr,  the  quondam  philosopher,  first  and  greatest  of 
the  Roman  fathers  of  the  church,  owed  his  own  conversion  ? 
Justin  relates  the  interview  in  the  opening  chapters  of  his 
Dialogue.  While  endeavoring  to  satisfy  his  philosophical 
doubts  as  a  disciple  of  "a  sagacious  man  holding  a  high  posi- 
tion among  the  Platonists"  at  Ephesus,  Justin  reports: 

1  Jn.  i:ii,  12. 


2o8  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

"I  used  to  go  into  a  certain  field  not  far  from  the  sea.  And 
when  I  was  near  that  spot  one  day,  which  having  reached  I  pur- 
posed to  be  by  myself,  a  certain  old  man,  by  no  means  contempti- 
ble in  appearance,  but  exhibiting  meek  and  venerable  manners, 
followed  me  at  a  little  distance." 

In  the  conversation  which  ensues  Justin  reports  how  the 
venerable  Christian  teacher  resolved  his  philosophic  doubts 
concerning  the  knowledge  of  God  and  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  by  pointing  to  a  revelation  unknown  to  Plato  and  the 
philosophers.  Let  the  reader  pursue  Justin's  report,  e.  g.,  of 
the  argument  which  makes  the  life  of  the  soul  not  intrinsic  as 
in  Plato,  but  the  gift  of  God,  "for  to  live  is  not  its  attribute, 
as  it  is  God's"  (Chapter  vi);  or  the  presentation  of  the 
"prophets  who  spoke  by  the  Divine  Spirit"  as  teachers  su- 
perior to  all  the  philosophers: 

"For  they  did  not  use  demonstration  in  their  treatises,  seeing 
they  were  witnesses  to  the  truth  which  is  above  all  demonstration, 
and  worthy  of  faith;  and  those  events  which  have  happened,  and 
those  which  are  happening  compel  you  to  assent  to  the  utterances 
made  by  them,  although  indeed  they  were  entitled  to  credit  on 
account  of  the  miracles  which  they  performed,  since  they  both 
glorified  the  Creator,  the  God  and  Father  of  all  things,  and  pro- 
claimed his  Son  the  Christ  (sent)  by  him:  which  indeed  the  false 
prophets,  which  are  filled  with  the  lying,  unclean  spirit  neither 
have  done  nor  do.  .  .  .  But  pray  that,  above  all  things  the 
gates  of  fight  may  be  opened  to  you;  for  these  things  cannot  be 
perceived  or  vmderstood  by  all,  but  only  by  the  man  to  whom  God 
and  his  Christ  have  imparted  wisdom."  ^ 

This  was  Justin's  only  colloquy  with  the  Elder.  He  does 
not  seem  to  have  known  his  name,  and  declares  in  so  many 
words  "I  have  not  seen  him  since."  We  cannot  of  course  lay 
stress  upon  the  coincidences  with  "  Johannine"  thought  and 
phraseology  in  the  reported  discourse;  for  we  cannot  tell 

1  Dialogue  with  Trypho,  Chapters  iii-viii. 


EPISTLES  AND  APPENDIX  209 

how  much  in  the  report  is  Justin's  own.  But  so  long  as  this 
figure  of  the  venerable  Christian  ])hilosopher  of  Ephesus  in 
Justin's  youth  (i  10-120  A.  d,  ?)  is  available  we  have  no  need 
to  shrink  from  the  challenge  to  i)oint  to  an  Elder  who  could 
have  compiled  the  Gospel  and  given  it  to  the  Asian  churches 
under  cover  of  the  three  Epistles. 

It  is  easy  to  sec  why  a  work  current  first  in  Asia  in  such  a 
form,  from  such  a  nameless  hand,  should  later,  when  destined 
for  wider  circulation  be  given  out  as  "apostolic."  Its  Ephe- 
sian  origin  and  accom])anying  Epistles  could  not  fail  to  sug- 
gest this  name  in  quarters  where  Revelation  was  already 
accepted  as  written  by  the  Apostle  John  while  staying  at 
Patmos  in  Asia.  We  should  rather  marvel  at  the  caution  and 
restraint  of  R  in  his  manner  of  making  the  suggestion  in  the 
new  epilogue  (Jn.  21)  which,  as  we  have  seen,  prepares  the 
work  for  wider  circulation  in  competition  with  other  forms 
of  the  evangehc  tradition,  and  other  apostolic  authorities. 
But  concerning  the  evidences  which  reveal  to  us  something 
of  the  date  and  history  of  the  Gospel's  conquest  of  canonical 
standing  we  shall  have  to  deal  in  another  chapter. 


Fourth  Gospel — 14 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  APPENDIX  A  PRODUCT  OF  REVISION  AT  ROME 

Inquiry  into  the  relations  of  the  Appendix,  of  the  Revela- 
tion and  of  the  Epistles  of  John  to  the  Gospel  has  compelled 
us  to  anticipate  our  study,  to  the  extent  that  these  connected 
writings  were  involved,  of  the  indirect  internal  evidence.  To 
appreciate  the  bearing  of  these  documents  on  the  problem  of 
the  authorship  of  the  Gospel  it  was  necessary  to  scrutinize 
the  internal  structure  of  the  subsidiary  and  connected  writ- 
ings, especially  the  Appendix,  since  in  the  manuscripts  as 
we  have  them  this  forms  an  integral  part  of  the  book.  The 
light  already  obtained  indicates  for  what  purpose  the  Ap- 
pendix was  written,  and  what  were  its  author's  views  regard- 
ing the  authorship  of  the  Gospel.  It  gives  at  least  a  sugges- 
tion as  to  the  grounds  on  which  they  rested,  in  the  phrases 
which  appear  to  be  taken  up  from  still  earlier  writings  of 
similar  bearing. 

We  must  now  attempt  a  closer  determination  of  the  where, 
when,  and  why  of  this  first  assertion  of  the  Johannine  author- 
ship; because^  it  became  the  source  and  foundation,  as  the 
phraseology  proves,  of  all  later  accounts;  and  to  do  this  we 
shall  need  to  apply  both  external  and  internal  evidences. 
They  should  help  us  to  determine  at  what  place  and  period 
the  influence  of  the  Appendix  begins  to  be  felt,  as  well  as 
what  influences  of  other  writings  are  traceable  in  it. 

We  have  already  noted  Lightfoot's  opinion  that  so  far  as 
difference  in  style  ( !)  is  concerned  a  few  weeks'  or  months' 
interval  is  all  that  need  be  assumed  between  Appendix  and 
Gospel;  and  that  the  fact  that  we  possess  no  manuscript 
evidence  of  the  circulation  of  the  Gospel  apart  from  the 

2IO 


REVISION  AT  ROME  211 

Appendix  is  proof  of  its  having  been  added  within  the  hfe- 
time  of  the  evangehst,  before  the  original  work  had  become 
disseminated.  Lightfoot  even  applies  the  same  argument  to 
the  post-postscript  (21:  25)  attributing  this  also  to  the  Apos- 
tle John  himself,  or  at  least  "one  of  his  immediate  disciples," 
at  a  date  but  slightly  later  still.  Zahn  and  other  "defenders" 
pursue  a  similar  line  of  reasoning,  explaining  the  apparent 
reference  to  the  Apostle's  death  (21:  23) — for  how  could  the 
writer  otherwise  know  that  the  sense  currently  given  to  the 
saying  of  Jesus  was  incorrect  ? — as  due  to  a  sense  on  his  own 
part  that  death  was  not  far  off.  In  the  language  of  one  of  the 
most  eminent  of  recent  "defenders." 

"The  aged  disciple,  feeling  death  stealing  upon  him,  might 
point  out  that  no  words  of  Jesus  justified  the  expectation  which 
had  arisen  among  some  of  his  devoted  friends."  ^ 

This  type  of  exegesis,  which  takes  Browning  for  a  model,^ 
and  unconsciously  parallels  the  rabbinic  explanations  how 
Moses  might  write  the  account  of  his  own  death  in  the  closing 
verses  of  the  Pentateuch,  substitutes  the  play  of  imagination 
for  serious  inquiry  into  the  actual  history  of  tradition  and  its 
adaptation  to  ecclesiastical  conditions  in  the  second  century. 
We  shall  have  more  to  say  regarding  it  at  a  later  time. 

It  is  incumbent  upon  us  first  of  all  to  point  out  how  little 
force  there  is  in  the  argument  of  an  early  date  for  the  Ap- 
pendix based  upon  the  lack  of  ISIS,  evidence  for  the  circula- 
tion of  the  Gospel  without  it. 

Those  who  make  this  plea  show  sHght  appreciation  of  the 
power  a  canonized  writing  exerts,  as  shown,  e.  g.,  in  the 
history  of  the  Massoretic  text  of  the  Old  Testament,  toward 
the  suppression  of  earlier  and  uncanonical  forms.  How 
many  examples  are  left  to  us  of  the  "many  narratives" 

1  Drummond,  Char,  and  Auth.,  p.  3S7,  quoted  and  indorsed  by  Sanday, 
Criticism,  p.  81. 

2  Sanday,  Criticism,  p.  254. 


212  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

which  "Luke"  aimed  to  supersede,  and  has  actually  super- 
seded ?  How  many  of  the  Logia  of  Matthew  ?  How  many  of 
the  Diary  incorporated  by  "Luke"  in  Acts?  How  many  of 
Romans  without  the  Epistle  of  commendation  of  Phoebe, 
and  without  the  doxology  so  variously  placed  but  in  the 
printed  texts  appearing  as  Rom.  16:25-27?  How  many 
examples  have  we  of  Mark  unsupplemented  ?  How  many  of 
Revelation  without  the  framework  provided  by  its  Asian 
editor?  Or,  to  come  down  to  the  Gospel  itself,  how  ex- 
tensive is  the  manuscript  evidence  of  its  circulation  without 
the  />05/-postscript  21:25? 

But  external  evidence  is  not  so  dumb  on  this  question  as  is 
sometimes  imagined.  Silence,  as  we  have  seen,  is  its  only 
form  of  witness  for  the  period  anterior  to  the  circulation  of  a 
given  writing;  and  there  are  circumstances  under  which  even 
silence  is  eloquent.  Such  in  fact  are  the  circumstances  al- 
ready described  under  which  Ignatius,  Polycarp,  Papias,  and 
Justin  successively  manifest  just  enough  acquaintance  with 
the  X  literature  to  prove  that  it  had  some  limited  circulation, 
and  at  the  same  time  by  their  silence  as  to  any  authority  at- 
taching to  it,  and  the  extreme  meagerness  of  their  employ- 
ment of  it,  present  an  insoluble  problem  to  the  "defenders." 
Professor  Stanton's  statement  of  the  case  shows  just  how 
great  the  embarrassment  is,  which  is  created  by  the  assump- 
tion that  Jn.  21:  24  already  formed  an  integral  part  of  the 
Gospel  on  a  footing  of  complete  equality  with  the  rest  in  the 
time  of  Justin  Martyr: 

"  If  (as  is  admitted  by  most  critics  at  the  present  day)  the  evi- 
dence shows  at  least  that  he  (Justin)  used  this  Gospel,  he  can 
hardly  have  taken  it  for  anything  else  than  what  it  professes  to 
be  {in  the  Appendix!),  a  faithful  record  of  the  testimony  of  a 
personal  and  singularly  close  follower  of  Clirist  regarding  the 
words  and  deeds  of  Christ."  ^ 

1  Gospels,  etc.,  p.  91. 


REVISION  AT  ROME  213 

If  on  the  contrary  the  Gospel  had  not  yet  received  this  edi- 
torial supplement,  or  if  Justin,  who,  as  Professor  Stanton 
has  taken  great  pains  to  show,  was  exceptionally  careful  to 
avoid  dependence  on  apocryphal  or  dubious  sources,  had 
knowledge  of  its  earlier  circulation  in  other  form,  either 
apart  from  this  epilogue,  or  accompanied  only  by  the  Asian 
epilogue  of  the  three  Epistles,  we  have  at  once  a  satisfactory 
explanation  not  only  of  Justin's  treatment  of  the  Gospel, 
but  of  that  of  his  predecessors. 

So  much  for  the  argument  from  silence.  But  we  are  not 
so  destitute  as  many  imagine  of  evidence  directly  attesting 
the  circulation  of  the  Gospel  in  unsupplemented  form.  The 
earUest  of  all  clearly  recognizable  references  to  the  Gospel, 
as  already  pointed  out— and  on  this  point  we  arc  glad  indeed 
to  have  such  high  indorsement  as  that  of  Sanday — is  that  of 
Mk.  16:9.^  But  the  Fourth  Gospel  which  this  reference 
implies  is  a  Fourth  Gospel  •without  the  Appendix. 

The  real  derivation  of  the  appendix  to  Mark  is  com- 
pletely unknown. 2  The  first  traces  of  its  existence  are  at 
Rome  about  the  middle  of  the  second  century.  This  agrees 
with  its  purpose,  already  shown  to  be  the  adjustment  of  the 
Galilean  type  of  tradition  regarding  the  Manifestation  to 
Peter  and  Apostolic  Commission  followed  in  the  substance 
of  the  Gospel  (Mk.  14:28;  16:7)  to  the  Jerusalem  type 
presented  by  Luke.  The  method  employed  is  drastic  indeed. 
The  Manifestation  to  Peter,  although  the  references  of  Paul 
already  show  it  to  have  been  fundamental  (I  Cor.  1 5 :5 ; 
Gal.  2:S;  cf.  Lk.  24:34),  is  canceled,  and  the  post-resurrection 
scenes  are  restricted  as  in  Luke  to  Jerusalem.  In  fact  with 
the  sole  exception  of  the  opening  clause  "Now  when  he  was 
risen  early  on  the  first  day  of  the  week  he  appeared  first  to 

1  See  above,  p.  69  f. 

2  On  the  supposed  evidence  of  derivation  from  "The  Elder  Aristo"  see 
alxjve,  p.  70. 


214  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Mary  Magdalen,"  the  writer  depends  throughout  on  Luke, 
or  traditions  connected  with  the  Lukan  writings.^ 

Now  the  leaning  toward  Jerusalem  is  even  more  pro- 
nounced in  the  substance  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  (chs.  1-20) 
than  in  Luke.  The  tendency  naturally  increased  as  the 
claims  of  Jerusalem  to  be  the  seat  of  apostohc  tradition  were 
enhanced  by  the  growing  dependence  on  "the  word  handed 
down  from  the  beginning."  In  the  body  of  the  Gospel 
(chs.  1-20)  Judaea  is  the  original  and  the  principal  scene  of 
Jesus'  ministry,  and  Jerusalem  the  principal  seat  of  his  ad- 
herents (7:3;  12:17-19).  The  three  resurrection  appear- 
ances, including  the  Apostohc  Commission  (20:21-23),  ^^e 
all  in  Jerusalem.  If  Jesus  "walks  in  Gahlee"  at  all,  it  is 
only  because  "he  would  not  walk  in  Judaea  because  the 
Jews  sought  to  kill  him"  (7:1).  When  he  does  return  to 
GaUlee  a  special  reason  is  given  (4:  44),  and  it  is  explained 
that  "the  Galileans  received  him  because  they  had  seen  the 
things  that  he  did  in  Jerusalem"  (4:45).  Contrariwise,  as 
we  have  seen,  it  is  a  primary  object  of  the  Appendix  (Jn.  21) 
to  adjust  this  extreme  type  of  the  Jerusalem  form  of  the  tradi- 
tion, at  least  so  far  as  it  concerned  the  Manifestation  to  Peter 
and  the  Apostohc  Commission,  to  the  Roman,  or  proto- 
Markan,  form.  Thus  there  are  exemplified  three  stages  of 
the  tradition:  (i)  the  proto-Markan.  This  is  represented  in 
(a)  Mark,  (b)  Paul,  (c)  traces  in  Lk.  22:32;  24:34,  and 
(d)  more  traces  in  Ev.  Petri.  We  have  (2)  the  Lukan,  repre- 
sented in  (a)  canonical  Luke  and  (b)  Jn.  1-20.  We  have 
(3)  a  harmonistic  combination  of  (i)  and  (2),  represented  in 
(a)  canonical  ^lark,  (b)  Ev.  Petri  and  (c)  canonical  John. 
Now  of  these  three  types  it  is  not  the  last,  but  the  second 
which  is  known  and  employed  in  Mk.  16:  9-20.  Had  its  au- 
thor known  the  combined  (third)  form,  he  would  surely  not 

1  The  rival  "shorter  ending"  has  similar  relation  to  Matthew.  See 
Bacon,  Beginnings  0/ Gospel  Story,  ad  loc. 


REVISION  AT  ROME  215 

have  chosen  that  which  involves  his  work  in  self-contradiction, 
besides  leaving  the  promise  of  the  angel,  "Ye  shall  see 
him  in  Galilee  as  he  told  you,"  unfulfilled,  and  Peter,  his 
hero,  under  the  unlifted  cloud  of  disgrace!  To  suppose 
that  he  had  before  him  our  Fourth  Gospel's  account  of  the 
appearance  to  Peter  and  the  rest  in  Galilee  with  the  miracu- 
lous draft  of  fishes,  and  the  beautiful  story  of  the  rehabilita- 
tion and  induction  of  Peter  into  the  office  of  chief  shepherd, 
yet  passed  this  all  over  for  the  sake  of  material  so  ill-adapted 
to  his  purpose  as  Jn.  20:11-18  and  Lk.  24:13-35,  is  to  make 
him  out  incredibly  unfit.  In  short  the  appendix  to  Mark  is 
an  example  of  the  same  harmonizing  effort  displayed  in  the 
Appendix  to  John,  but  is  earlier  and  cruder;  so  that  its  author 
while  acquainted  with  Jn.  20,  cannot  be  supposed  to  have 
known  Jn.  21. 

The  earliest  known  reference  to  the  Fourth  Gospel,  ac- 
cordingly, seems  to  know  it  not  as  supplemented  by  the 
Appendix,  but  apart  from  this,  and  with  such  mode  and 
measure  of  employment  as  we  have  found  to  be  characteristic 
of  the  period  when  no  such  claims  as  those  of  the  Appendix 
had  yet  been  advanced  in  its  behalf. 

We  may  add  that  if  the  Gospel  was  already  provided 
with  the  Appendix  such  an  editorial  envelope  as  Lightfoot 
supposes  (I  Jn.)  would  hardly  have  been  added.  The 
converse,  however,  is  easily  explicable,  inasmuch  as  the 
Epistles  provide  only  for  a  local  circulation  in  the  region  of 
Ephesus,  whereas  the  Appendix  takes  account  of  Christen- 
dom at  large.  In  this  respect  comparison  with  Ev.  Petri 
and  particularly  with  the  appendix  to  Mark  is  peculiarly 
instructive.  Both  appendices  represent  adjustments  of  the 
two  great  streams  of  tradition  regarding  the  origin  of  the 
evangelic  message  and  the  foundation  of  apostolic  authority. 
In  the  one  case  the  Galilean  has  been  suppressed  in  favor  of 
the  Jerusalem  tradition;  in  the  other  the  Jerusalem  tradition 


2i6  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

has  been  supplemented  by  the  GaHlean.     It  is  the  latter 
which  represents  the  later  stage. 

Herewith  we  must  return  to  the  internal  evidence;  for 
internal  evidence  alone  can  be  decisive  as  to  date  and  au- 
thority. And  the  internal  evidence  of  the  Appendix  agrees 
with  the  apparent  ignorance  of  all  early  writers  of  its 
claim. 

1,  Furrer,  writing  on  the  "  Geography  of  the  Fourth  Gos- 
pel," ^  refers  to  the  frccjucntly  expressed  view  of  critics 
that  the  words  rr}?  Ti/Se/amSo?  in  Jn.  6:i  are  a  gloss  attached 
before  the  diffusion  of  our  manuscripts.  The  phrase  irepav 
rrj<i  6akdaar]'i  Trj<;  TaXiXaia^  rr}?  Tt/3epiaSo9  is  at  least  "awk- 
ward and  unusual"  as  Sanday  admits.-  Jewish  writings 
of  the  second  century  and  Pausanias,  afford,  as  Furrer 
shows,  the  first  evidence  of  the  superseding  of  the  old  name, 
"Sea  of  Galilee,"  or  " Gennesaret,"  after  Tiberias  had  ac- 
quired its  later  predominant  importance.^ 

But  the  Appendix  has  "the  Sea  of  Tiberias"  pure  and 
simple.     Furrer,  therefore,  dates  it  "bcdeutcnd  spater."  ^ 

2.  The  tendency  of  Mk.  16:9-20,  of  Luke,  of  Jn.  1-20, 
is  progressive  towards  suppression  of  the  Galilean  form  of 
the  tradition  of  the  resurrection,  in  favor  of  that  which  de- 


^Zts.f.  n.  t.  Wiss.,  November,  1902. 

^Criticism,  p.  114. 

3  The  only  mention  of  Tiberias  in  the  Gospels  is  Jn.  6:  23.  It  acquired 
importance  as  seat  of  the  central  synagogue  of  Judaism,  which  removed 
thither  from  Jamnia  after  the  war  of  Bar-Cocheba  (135  A.  D.).  In  the  Tal- 
mud "Sea  of  Tiberias"  is  consistently  employed. 

*  Lightfoot  {Bihl.  Essays,  p.  176)  had  said  in  reply  to  this  argument, 
"The  city  of  Tiberias,  built  by  Herod  Antipas  .  .  .  could  hardly  have 
given  its  name  to  the  lake  as  early  as  the  date  of  our  Lord's  ministry.  The 
designation  however  'Sea  of  Tiberias'  is  found  in  Josephus  (B.  J.  iii,  3,  5), 
before  St.  John  wrote  his  Gospel."  More  careful  scrutiny  of  the  evidence 
from  Josephus  will  show  however  that  its  bearing  is  in  reality  the  other 
way.  Niese  reads  t^s  irpbs  Ti/3ept(i5t(-a)  Xi/xv-rjs;  "  altered  in  the  inferior 
MSS.  to  Ti^epiUos}' 


REVISION  AT  ROME  217 

nics  the  "scattering  of  the  sheep,"  ^  and  beginning  with 
Mt.  28:  9-1 1  (=  verses  7-8)  builds  up  an  account  which  starts 
with  an  appearance  to  Mary  Magdalen,  and  ends  with  an 
overcoming  of  the  incredulity  of  the  disciples  in  Jerusalem. 

The  Appendix,  as  we  have  seen,  follows  the  still  later 
tendency  to  reinstate  the  Galilean  tradition,  harmonizing  in 
21:  14,  and  presenting  it  in  a  form  similar  to  the  Ev.  Petri, 
wherein  the  same  tendency  to  combination  appears.  A 
similar  adjustment  seems  to  be  attempted  toward  the  relative 
claims  of  Peter  and  John,  those  of  John  being  really  a  later 
growth. 2 

In  the  Appendix  Peter  is  the  Lord's  ^t'Xo?;  John  his 
ayaTrrjTO'i  (21:15-17,  20).  The  function  of  witness-bearing 
(fiaprvpia)  is  divided  between  the  two.  Peter  receives, 
besides  the  office  of  chief  shepherd,  the  crown  of  "martyr- 
dom"; John  becomes  the  fiaprik  who  abides  until  the  second 
coming,  the  "witness  of  Messiah."  ^  The  speech  and  action 
are  even  more  affected  than  in  the  body  of  the  Gospel  by  the 
later  disposition  toward  an  enigmatical  and  mystical  sense. 

3.  The  conception  of  the  function  of  John  as  against 
Peter,  just  referred  to,  almost  reverses  synoptic  tradition. 
Martyrdom  (suffering)  there  is  the  part  of  John  (Mk.  10:39). 
If  Peter  suffered  such  a  fate,  the  first  trace  of  it  is  in  Clement 
of  Rome.  New  Testament  writers  [except  II  Pt.,  150 
A.  D.  (?)]  ignore  it."*  The  specific  application  to  John  of  the 
logion  regarding  the  "witnesses  of  Messiah"   (Mt.    16:28; 

1  Mk.  14:  27-28,  omitted  by  Luke,  and  contradicted  by  his  account  of 
events. 

2  Cy.  Mt.  16:18;  Lk.  5:1-11;  22:32f  24:12,  with  Gal.  2:9;  Lk.  22:8, 
Acts  3:1,  11;  4:13,  19;  8:14;  Jn.  1:35-42  (John  the  first  follower  of  Jesus; 
earlier  than  Peter);  13:23-25;  19:  25-27,  35;  20:1-9  (against  Lk.  24:12, 
John  the  first  to  believe  in  the  risen  Lord). 

3  On  the  animus  of  the  Appendix,  see  Klopper,  "  Joh.  Kapitel  21,"  in  the 
Z.f.  u'jss.  Th.,  1899.    But  his  views  are  pushed  to  an  extreme. 

*  The  earlier  disposition  was  rather  to  feci  execution  a  disgrace,  Eph. 
3:13;  I  Pt.  4:16. 


2i8  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

cf.  II  Esdr.  6:  26;  Rev.  11 :3-i3)  testified  to  in  the  "sayings" 
alluded  to  in  21:  23,  comes  in  after  Mt.  20:  23=Mk.  10:39. 
It  is  supposed  to  have  grown  up  in  consequence  of  the  long 
survival  of  this  Apostle.  At  any  rate  it  must  in  the  nature 
of  the  case  be  much  later.  The  scoffs  alluded  to  in  II  Pt. 
3 :  4  are  met  in  the  Leucian-Prochorus  legend  by  the  story  of 
John's  metastasis,  or  miraculous  survival  in  the  grave.  Our 
Appendix  meets  them  by  giving  a  conditional  form  to  the 
logion  ("if  I  will  that  he  tarry"),  and  making  the  witness- 
bearing  the  point  in  question.^  The  author  not  only  feels 
with  Papias  the  need  of  an  acceptable  "exegesis"  of  Mk. 
10:39,  but  of  Mt.  16:  28  as  well.  This  latter  logion  has  not 
only  received  its  specific  application  to  John,  but  the  current 
interpretation  of  this  appHcation  itself  now  requires  to  be 
corrected,  because  this  Apostle,  too,  has  "fallen  on  sleep." 
4.  The  conception  of  the  function  and  career  of  Peter  is 
like  that  assigned  in  the  Clementines  to  James  the  Lord's 
brother,  as  the  episcopus  episcoporum,  or  even  like  that  of 
the  later  Roman  hierarchy,  rather  than  the  conception  we 
should  draw  from  Paul  (I  Cor.  9:5;  Gal.  2:8,  11),  from 
Acts,  or  even  from  Clement  {ad  Cor.  v,  4)  of  his  itinerant 
evangehstic  labors.  It  seems  to  be  based  on  I  Pt.  5:1-5.^ 
The  relation  of  the  Commission  of  Peter  of  Jn.  21:15-17  to 
the  Commission  of  the  Twelve  of  Jn.  20:  21-23  is  therefore 
parallel  to  the  relation  of  Mt.  16:17-19  to  Mt.  18:15-20; 
except  that  in  the  Appendix  it  is  not  the  founding  of  the 
Church  on  the  rock  of  faith  in  the  resurrection,  prevailing 
against  the  gates  of  Hades,  a  pendant  to  Lk.  22:  32,  which 
the  writer  has  in  mind.  In  Jn.  21  :i5-i7  it  is  permanent  con- 
trol and  leadership.      The  analogy  of  the  two  IMatthaean 

1  Cf.  Polycrates,  "John  was  a  witness  and  teacher." 

2  Cf.  in  Jn.  21:15-19  the  direction  to  "feed  the  flock"  given  by  the  "chief 
Shepherd,"  the  references  to  "girding,"  "elder"  age,  and  the  "glory"  of 
faithful  service. 


REVISION  AT  ROME  219 

passages,  generally  acknowledged  to  represent  different  stages 
of  the  same  traditional  "saying,"  only  accentuates  the  relative 
lateness  in  the  })oint  of  view  of  Jn.  21 :  15-17  in  comparison 
with  Jn.  20:  21-23, 

Considerations  such  as  the  above  point  to  a  relatively  late 
date  for  the  Appendix,  such  as  the  external  evidence  would 
also  suggest;  while  against  it  there  is  nothing  but  the  fallacious 
assumption  that  if  the  Gospel  had  had  any  circulation  at  all 
previous  to  the  addition  of  the  Appendix,  even  were  that  cir- 
culation confined  to  the  churches  of  Asia,  and  without  ex- 
plicit pretensions  to  apostolic  authorship,  we  should  have  had 
greater  textual  evidence  of  the  fact  than  now  survives.^ 

But  the  surest  method  for  dating  this  supremely  important 
document  is  to  put  the  question.  At  what  period,  under  what 
circumstances,  was  it  essential  to  the  acceptance  of  the 
Gospel  referred  to  and  commended  in  21:  24  to  be  thus  in- 
troduced ?  To  this  question  we  can  find  but  one  answer :  At 
Rome,  ca.  150  a.  d. 

It  is  in  the  same  region  at  about  the  same  date  that  we  find 
a  similar  appendix  attached  to  the  Gospel  of  Mark,  making 
converse  adjustment  of  the  Roman  gospel  to  the  Antiochian, 
whose  wider  circulation  is  now  attested  by  Basilides  in  Alex- 
andria, by  Marcion  and  Justin  at  Rome.  With  the  break- 
ing up  of  the  original  seat  of  apostolic  tradition  in  Jerusalem 
in  the  war  of  Bar-Cocheba  Asia  obtained  no  doubt  some  small 

1  We  shall  have  occasion  later  to  discuss  evidences  derived  from  the  Gospel 
itself  of  its  circulation  in  earlier  form.  Among  these  are  the  addition  in 
5:36,  4  which  the  best  texts  omit  as  an  interpolation,  but  which  subse- 
quent reference  (verse  7)  proves  to  have  once  formed  part  of  the  story. 
In  the  article  "Tatian's  Rearrangement  of  the  Fourth  Gospel"  reprinted 
in  Part  IV  from  the  Amer.  Journ.  of  Theol.  (Oct.,  1900)  evidence  is  ad- 
duced to  show  that  Tatian  was  influenced  by  something  more  than  the 
present  form  of  the  Gospel  in  the  construction  of  his  Diatessaron.  In  view 
of  its  late  date  (125-175?)  the  reference  in  II  Pt.  i:  14  to  Jn.  21:18  f.  can 
only  be  classed  with  external  evidences  for  the  currency  of  the  Gospel  as  a 
whole. 


220  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

increment  of  believers  "escaped  from  the  war;"  ^  but  Rome 
fell  heir  to  the  principal  substance  of  apostolic  influence  and 
authority.  Already  with  the  visit  of  Polycarp  to  Anicetus  in 
154  A.  D.  we  find  the  bishop  of  Rome  endeavoring  to  bring 
the  ritual  practice  of  East  and  West  into  uniformity.  Tradi- 
tions exist — of  how  great  value  it  is  difficult  to  say — that  so 
early  as  under  bishop  "Xystus"  (Sixtus  I)  in  the  year  119 
A.  D.  a  council  was  assembled  at  Rome  to  deal  with  questions 
relating  to  the  story  of  the  infancy  of  Jesus  in  the  early  chap- 
ters of  Matthew.^  It  is  certainly  at  Rome  that  the  problem  of 
harmonization  between  the  Markan  and  Lukan  (Galilean 
and  Jerusalem)  forms  of  the  tradition  is  first  precipitated  by 
the  new  prominence  given  by  Marcion  (ca.  140  a.  d.)  to  the 
Antiochian  gospel.  It  is  during  this  same  period  and  at 
Rome  that  Valentinus  becomes  the  exponent  in  Gnostic 
circles  of  the  pohcy  of  combination  and  harmonization  of 
all  four  ( ?)  of  the  gospels,  which  is  carried  on  from  the 
orthodox  side  by  Tatian  (160-170  a.  d.)  to  the  point  of 
actual  combination  into  a  composite  Diatessaron.  It  is  here 
at  Rome  that  we  find  the  conflict  breaking  out,  whose  history 
we  have  still  to  trace,  between  the  advocates  of  one  gospel, 
or  two,  or  three ;  or  of  the  fourfold  gospel  which  finally  com- 
mands the  field.    What  circumstances  in  all  the  known  his- 

1  So  Trypho  the  Jew  in  Justin's  Dial.  i.  Papias  may  have  similar  refugees 
in  mind  in  referring  to  "those  who  came  my  way."  The  Dialogue  of  Jason 
and  Papiscus  (140  A.  d.  ?)  had  a  similar  mise  en  scene  which  may  have  led 
to  its  attribution  to  Aristo  of  Pella.  For  Eusebius'  account  of  the  effects 
of  the  war  is  quoted  from  "Aristo." 

2  See  the  Syriac  MS.  entitled,  "As  to  the  Star:  showing  how  and  by  what 
means  the  Magi  knew  the  Star,  and  that  Joseph  did  not  take  Mary  as  his 
Wife"  published  by  W.  Wright  in  Journ.  of  Sacred  Lit.,  Oct.,  1866.  The 
only  element  of  value  is  the  alleged  assembling  of  the  council  "  in  the  year 
430  (Seleucid  era  =119  A.  D.),  under  the  reign  of  Hadrianus  Caesar,  in  the 
consulship  of  Severus  and  Fulgus,  and  the  episcopate  of  Xystus  bishop  of 
the  city  of  Rome."  In  the  judgment  of  Hilgenfeld  ("Das  kanon.  Mtev." 
in  Zts.f.  wiss.  Th.,  1895,  p.  449)  this  date  must  rest  on  authentic  data. 


REVISION  AT  ROME  221 

tory  of  the  gospel  canon  can  so  exi)lain  the  attachment  of  this 
commendatory  postscri[)t  to  the  Fourth  Gospel  as  those  of 
Rome  ca.  150  a.  d.  ?  Up  to  this  date  we  iind  it  scarcely 
known,  current  only  in  proconsular  Asia,  and  making  its 
claims  to  apostolic  authority  only  in  the  mystical  and  (to  the 
matter  of  fact  occidental  mind)  enigmatic  "we"  of  Gospel 
and  Epistles;  thereafter  it  is  first  hesitatingly  and  doubtfully 
employed  at  Rome  by  Justin  (a  convert  of  Ephesus),  then 
hotly  contested  as  "new  scripture"  falsely  attributed  to  "a 
great  Apostle,"  then,  after  suppression  of  the  opposition, 
rapidly  disseminated  in  various  forms  of  the  fourfold  gospel. 

We  ha\e  seen  what  generous  concessions  are  made  in  the 
Appendix  to  the  claims  of  the  see  of  Peter,  and  how  the 
ancient  Roman,  or  proto-Markan,  tradition  of  Peter's 
Apostolic  Commission  is  revived  and  adjusted  to  the  claims 
of  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved";  how  the  tradition  is 
here  developed  of  his  martyrdom  late  in  life,  far  from  the 
scene  of  his  tending  the  flock  (21  :i8),  a  story  which  is  trace- 
able aside  from  this  passage  only  in  later  writers,  principally 
at  Rome.  Indeed  we  can  scarcely  see  how  it  were  possible 
othenvise  for  the  transition  to  be  made  from  a  mystical 
Ephesian  Gospel,  accompanied  by  no  higher  claims  than 
those  embodied  in  Jn.  1-20  and  the  inclosing  Epistles,  to  a 
catholic  Gospel  of  general  acceptation  and  admitted  apostoKc 
authority.  We  cannot  conceive  the  transition  as  practicable 
without  an  editorial  revision  involving  adjustment  to  Synop- 
tic story,  and  more  especially  some  new  and  more  general 
epilogue  identifying  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved"  with  a 
"great  apostle"  himself  the  author  of  the  book.  This  once 
effected  it  would  depend  not  on  critical  reasons,  which  in  that 
age  were  secondary,  but  preeminently  on  doctrinal  accepta- 
bility, whether  the  work  would  or  would  not  come  to  be 
reckoned  the  last  and  greatest  element  in  the  fourfold  gospel 
of  the  catholic  Church. 


222  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

In  the  light  of  such  an  interest  as  this  the  singular  cancela- 
tion from  the  body  of  the  work  of  references  to  the  sons  of 
Zebedee  becomes  inteUigible,  together  with  the  veiled  and 
enigmatic  manner  of  the  identification  of  "the  disciple  whom 
Jesus  loved."  The  "prophecy"  current  for  some  decades  in 
Asia  under  the  name  of  "John"  and  stalwartly  defended  by 
leading  men  both  in  Asia  and  Rome,  as  by  the  Apostle,  lent 
plausibility  to  the  representation.  It  was  the  less  open  to 
objection  because  the  place  of  composition  could  at  need  (as 
in  the  Muratorianum)  be  considered  Jerusalem;  while  at  the 
same  time  other  views  of  the  fate  of  "this  man"  recognized 
as  current  are  explained  away.  The  editor  only  suggests  the 
identification  of  the  author  and  beloved  disciple  with  John;  he 
diplomatically  avoids  the  responsibility  of  a  direct  assertion. 

So  with  the  contradictions  of  Synoptic  story  so  far  as  such 
are  allowed  to  stand. ^  It  is  in  connection  with  these  that  we 
find  the  comments,  scattered  equally  through  Gospel  and 
Appendix,  which  Lightfoot  designates  "Instances  of  allusions 
to  misapprehensions  or  to  questionings  rife  in  those  about 
him."  The  notion  of  "conversational  comments"  addressed 
to  a  group  of  disciples  who  stand  about  as  the  author  dictates 
his  Gospel  may  appeal  to  a  poetic  imagination  Hke  Brown- 
ing's, quick  to  follow  the  lead  of  the  Muratorianum  in  its 
interpretation  of  21:  24;  but  the  historic  will  recall  the  har- 
monistic  and  apologetic  interest  of  the  second  century  and  the 
analogy  of  many  another  ecclesiastical  writer  of  the  period, 
who  aims  to  show  that 

"Although  varying  ideas  may  be  taught  in  the  several  books 
of  the  evangelists,  there  is  no  difference  in  that  which  pertains 
to  the  faith  of  believers."  ^ 

1  On  the  "veiled"  correction  of  the  Synoptists  in  respect  to  the  occurrence 
of  the  crucifixion  on  the  fourteenth  (not  fifteenth)  Nisan,  see  the  discussions 
below  of  the  Quartodeciman  controversy  and  the  relation  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  to  it.     Chapter  XVI. 

2  Muratorianum, 


REVISION  AT  ROME  223 

Applying  not  the  poetic,  but  the  historic  imagination  we  may 
well  adopt  Lightfoot's  own  examples: 

"1:41  ^  He  was  the  first  to  find,'  etc.,^  2:11  '  This  was  the  be- 
ginning of  his  miracles,'  3:  24  'John  was  not  yet  cast  into  prison,* 
4:54  'This  again  was  the  second  miracle  which  Jesus  did,'  18:13 
'He  (Annas)  was  father-in-kiw  to  Caiaphas,  who  was  high-priest 
of  that  year,'  19:34  sq.  'There  came  out  water  and  blood.'  Great 
stress  is  laid  upon  this  last  point,  doubtless  in  allusion  to  some 
symbolism  which  is  not  explained,  because  they  would  under- 
stand it.'  So  21:14  'This  was  now  the  third  ^  time  that  Jesus 
manifested  Himself,  21:23  'The  saying  therefore  went  abroad 
among  the  brethren  that  that  disciple  should  not  die.  Yet  Jesus 
said  not  unto  him,  He  shall  not  die,'  etc.  Thus  we  find  the 
Evangelist  clearing  up  matters  which  the  current  tradition  had 
left  doubtful,  or  on  which  the  popular  mind  wished  to  be  further 
informed.  Through  the  main  part  of  the  narrative  we  see  these 
parenthetical  additions,  these  conversational  comments.  At 
length  (19:35;  20:31)  there  is  a  direct  appeal  to  these  disciples  (?) 
for  whom  the  whole  has  been  written.  '  He  knoweth  that  he  saith 
true  that  ye  might  believe.'  'These  things  are  written  that  ye 
might  believe  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God;  and  that 
believing  ye  might  have  life  through  His  name.'  "  "^ 

Into  the  question  of  the  separation  of  redactional  addi- 
tions from  the  body  of  the  Gospel  we  cannot  enter  at  this 

1  Has  even  Lightfoot  allowed  his  eye  to  rest  for  a  moment  upon  the 
English,  or  is  he  misled  by  the  /3  text?    See  above,  p.  202,  note. 

2  But  cf.  I  Jn.  5:6ff. 

3  In  this  case  the  italics  are  ours.  The  internal  evidence  shows  clearly 
that  this  was  originally  related  as  a  first  appearance.  The  same  thing  has 
happened  in  Lk.  24:36-43,  which  in  spite  of  the  previous  context  was 
originally  a.  first  manifestation,  as  proved  by  verse  37  which  is  irreconcilable 
with  verses  ;i;i,  34.  Here,  in  the  Lukan  story,  and  in  the  manifestation  to 
James  of  Ev.  Hebr.  alike,  the  "eating  together"  is  brought  out  not  merely 
to  prove  Jesus'  corporeality,  but  in  the  interest  of  justifying  church  ritual, 
which  "broke  fast"  in  celebration  of  the  resurrection.  R  here  seeks  to 
harmonize  by  giving  the  manifestation  a  "third"  place.  Cf.  the  passage  in 
Lk.  24. 

*  Lightfoot,  Bibl.  Essays,  p.  197  f. 


224  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

point.  What  the  great  leader  of  the  "defenders"  has  noted 
should  suffice  for  our  present  purpose.  All  that  need  be 
added  is  the  reminder  that  the  notion  of  a  surrounding  group 
of  disciples,  to  whom  the  EvangeHst  addresses  "conversa- 
tional comments"  as  he  writes,  rests  upon  an  exegesis  of 
21 :  24  based  on  mere  poetic  fancy;  while  the  real  "matters 
which  the  current  tradition  had  left  doubtful,  on  which  the 
popular  mind  wished  to  be  further  informed"  are  not  such 
vague  and  shadowy  possibilities  as  here  suggested,  but  are 
the  actual  discrepancies  between  the  Gospels  which  evoked 
on  the  one  side  the  taunts  of  Celsus  and  of  the  predecessors 
to  whom  he  alludes,  on  the  other  the  explanations  of  a  Papias 
regarding  the  differences  of  order  in  the  narrative  and  lan- 
guage in  the  sayings.  More  especially  we  have  the  harmoniz- 
ing adjustments  of  the  two  traditions  of  the  resurrection 
which  begin  to  appear  after  the  Church  has  admitted  a  third 
to  the  number  of  its  gospels,  to  exemplify  the  real  matters  on 
which  the  popular  mind  required  to  be  "further  informed." 
Such  then  is  the  situation  presupposed  by  the  Appendix 
and  its  connected  revision.  So  far  as  it  is  possible  to  fix  a 
date  by  means  of  the  internal  phenomena  of  a  writing  adapt- 
ing it  to  the  needs  of  a  given  period,  the  internal  evidences  of 
the  Appendix  agree  with  the  external.  Both  seem  to  con- 
verge to  the  following  conclusion:  The  Appendix  forms  part 
of  a  revision  of  the  Gospel  effected  at  Rome  not  far  from 
150  A.  D.,  in  dependence  on  I  Pt.  and  on  the  Gospel  itself, 
inclosed  as  the  latter  then  was  under  its  Asian  editorial  set- 
ting of  the  three  Epistles.  The  reviser  aimed,  like  the  nearly 
contemporary  author  of  the  appendix  to  Mark,  to  adjust  the 
Gospel  to  rival  forms  of  the  evangelic  tradition,  and  to  secure 
to  it  the  apostohc  authority  of  the  John  of  Revelation,  with- 
out detriment  to  the  dominant  authority  of  Peter,  by  a  cau- 
tiously suggested  identification  of  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus 
loved"  with  the  son  of  Zebedee. 


REVISION  AT  ROME 


225 


There  remains  one  further  Hne  of  proof  for  this  dating  and 
motivation  of  the  Appen(Hx — the  historic  effect.  An  element 
of  such  profound  and  far-reaching  importance  as  a  hitherto 
unknown,  or  at  least  unemployed,  gospel,  so  different  in  char- 
acter from  those  already  current  in  the  Church,  so  superlative 
in  its  claims  to  apostolic  authority,  could  not  be  interjected 
into  the  developing  hfe  and  strife  of  the  infant  faith  without 
some  degree  of  commotion.  What  traces  still  remain  to  us  of 
such  effects,  and  whether  they  do  or  do  not  bear  out  the  theory 
we  have  advanced  of  the  origins  of  the  tradition  of  John  in 
Asia  and  his  authorship  of  the  Gospel,  is  a  problem  still  to 
be  confronted.  It  brings  us  face  to  face  with  the  struggle 
toward  general  adoption  of  the  fourfold  gospel,  at  the  end  of 
which  the  Fourth  Gospel  attains  its  position  of  undisputed 
canonicity. 


Fourth  Gospel — 15 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  BATTLE  FOR  RECOGNITION  OF  ASIAN  TRADITION  AT  ROME 

The  period  of  a  full  human  generation  between  Justin's 
very  non-committal  employment  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  (ca. 
152  A.  D.)  and  Irenaeus'  sweeping  assertions  of  its  high  au- 
thority {ca.  186  A.  D.)  is  marked  at  Rome  by  a  series  of  con- 
troversies which  involved  to  greater  or  less  extent  the  re- 
spective claims  of  Ephesus  and  Rome  as  seats  of  apostolic 
tradition.  Eusebius  is  our  principal  reliance  for  an  account 
of  these,  and  has  the  qualifications  of  a  true  scholar,  though, 
as  we  have  seen  in  the  case  of  Revelation,  he  is  not  without 
the  prejudices  of  an  ecclesiastic,  which  sometimes  affect  his 
testimony.  We  must  remember,  too,  that  he  is  professedly 
writing  as  an  apologist  for  the  apostolic  authority  and  au- 
thenticity of  the  generally  received  writings  of  the  Church, 
and  for  its  succession  of  orthodox  teachers  and  leaders.  So 
far,  then,  as  he  reports  at  all  questions  which  had  arisen  re- 
garding the  apostolic  authorship  of  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
especially  if  they  seemed  to  be  raised  by  a  "very  learned  ec- 
clesiastic" not  otherwise  open  to  the  suspicion  of  heresy,  we 
must  not  expect  him  to  treat  the  matter  from  an  altogether 
unbiased  and  critico-historical  point  of  view.  To  his  age 
such  questioning,  from  such  a  source,  could  only  be  intelligi- 
ble if  given  a  less  radical  bearing.  It  is  therefore  no  more 
than  we  should  expect  when  we  find  the  chapter  of  his 
History  that  actually  deals  with  this  controversy  ^  entitled 
only  "The  Order  of  the  Gospels";  although  something 
much  more  vital  is  suggested  both  by  the  adjoining  context 

1  H.  E.  Ill,  xxiv.     Ilepl  rijs  rd^ews  tQv  evayyeXiuv. 
226 


ASIAN  TRADITION  AT  ROME  227 

(the  preceding  chapter  is  entitled  "Narrative  concerning 
John  the  Apostle";  the  succeeding  "The  Divine  Scriptures 
that  are  Accepted  and  those  that  are  not")  and  by  the  actual 
contents  of  the  chapter  itself.  It  appears  in  fact  to  be  the 
main  object  of  the  chapter  to  explain  how 

"one  who  understands  this  (viz,  that  'John  in  his  Gospel 
records  the  deeds  of  Christ  which  were  performed  before  the 
Baptist  was  cast  into  prison,  but  the  other  three  evangelists  men- 
tion the  events  which  happened  after  that  time')  can  no  longer 
think  that  the  Gospels  are  at  variance  with  one  another,  inasmuch 
as  the  Gospel  according  to  John  contains  the  first  acts  of  Christ, 
while  the  others  give  an  account  of  the  latter  part  of  his  life." 

In  other  words,  Euscbius,  while  ostensibly  dealing  only  with 
"the  order  of  the  Gospels"  is  really  offering  his  own  (?) 
solution  of  the  great  bone  of  contention  between  "Alogi"  ^ 
and  advocates  of  the  fourfold  gospel,  that  "the  Gospels  are 
at  variance  with  one  another"'  {Siaijxovelv  aW'qXoi'i  ra 
evayyeXia^  cj.,  SokcI  (naaidl^eiv  ra  evayydXia  of  Apollinaris). 
In  what  interest  he  does  this  is  apparent  from  the  adjoining 
chapters. 

In  a  previous  reference  where  he  aimed  to  substantiate  the 
claim  of  Rome  to  have  Peter  and  Paul  as  its  founders  he 
further  indicates  the  principal  source  of  his  information  as 
follows. 

"  It  is  confirmed  likewise  by  Caius,  a  champion  of  the  Church 
(cKKAi^crtao-TtKos    avrip),   who  arose  under  Zephyrinus   bishop  of 

1  Epiphanius  {Haer.  li)  coins  this  punning  epithet  for  those  who  rejected 
the  Fourth  Gospel  because  this  was  the  gospel  of  the  Logos-doctrine. 

2  C/.  the  Muratorianum,  which  after  its  defense  of  the  apostolic  authorship 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  adds  "And  therefore,  although  varying  ideas  may  be 
taught  in  the  several  books  of  the  evangelists,  there  is  no  difference  in  that 
which  pertains  to  the  faith  of  Vjelievers,"  etc.  See  also  the  accusations  ex- 
changed during  the  Paschal  controversy  that  Quartodeciman  or  anti- 
Quartodeciman  interpretations  "set  the  Gospels  at  variance  with  one 
another." 


228  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Rome.-^  He  in  a  published  Disputation  with  Proclns,  the  leader 
of  the  Phrygian  heresy,^  speaks  as  follows  concerning  the  places 
where  the  sacred  corpses  of  the  aforesaid  apostles  are  laid:  'But 
I  can  show  the  trophies  of  the  apostles.  For  if  you  will  go  to 
the  Vatican,  or  to  the  Ostian  Way  you  will  find  the  monuments 
(TpoTraia)  of  those  who  laid  the  foundations  of  this  church.'  "  ^ 

Caius  is  boasting  against  his  "Phrygian"  opponent  of  the 
apostolic  authority  of  Rome,  as  against  the  Montanistic 
succession,  which  claimed  to  descend  by  successive  prophets 
and  prophetesses  from  the  prophets  of  Acts  15:32;  21:10  and 
the  prophesying  daughters  of  Philip  the  Evangelist.  Proclus 
had  pointed  to  "their  tomb  and  the  tomb  of  their  father"  at 
Hierapolis  in  Phrygia."*  In  a  later  controversy  we  shall  find 
conversely  Polycratcs  of  Ephesus  offsetting  the  rpoirala  of 
Peter  and  Paul  at  Rome  by  the  declaration  that 

"in   Asia    also   great   lights  {o-tol-^uo)  have   fallen   on   sleep, 
which  shall  rise  again  on  the  day  of  the  Lord's  coming. 
Among  these  are  Philip,  one  of  the  twelve  apostles  [sic],  who 
fell  asleep  in  Hierapolis,  and  his  two  aged  virgin  daughters,  and 

1  The  date  is  probably  too  late.  It  may  have  been  inferred  from  the 
reply  written  by  Hippolytus  at  about  the  period  of  this  episcopate  (198- 
217  A.  D.).  But  replies  were  often  written  at  a  period  long  after  the  appear- 
ance of  the  work  refuted,  e.  g.,  Origen's  treatise  Against  Celsus.  Scholars 
of  all  schools  admit  that  Eusebius  has  greatly  postdated  the  rise  of  Montan- 
ism.    On  the  true  dates  see  below. 

2  Montanism,  so  called  from  its  Asian  provenance.  Its  advent  in  the 
West  was  not  later  than  177  A.  d.,  when  Eleutherus,  bishop  of  Rome,  under 
pressure  from  Praxeas  (Tertullian,  /Itft;.  Prax.  i)  declared  against  it.  Proclus 
(called  Proculus  noster  by  Tertullian,  and  classed  by  him,  in  adv.  Val.  v, 
with  Justin  Martyr,  Miltiades  and  Irenoeus,  as  a  successful  opponent  of 
heresy)  was  a  leader  of  one  division  of  the  Montanists,  ^schines  of  the  other. 

3  H.  E.  II,  XXV,  6. 

4  H.  E.  Ill,  xxi,  4.  Proclus  had  said  "After  him  (Silas?)  there  were  four  , 
prophetesses  the  daughters  of  Philip  at  Hierapolis  in  Asia.  Their  tomb  is 
there  and  the  tomb  of  their  father."  See  also  the  extract  from  Apollinaris 
of  Hierapolis  in  H.  E.  V,  xvii,  3,  4,  protesting  against  the  Montanists' 
enrolment  of  Agabus,  Judas,  and  Silas,  the  daughters  of  Philip,  Ammia  in 
Philadelphia,  and  Quadratus  in  their  prophetic  succession. 


ASIAN  TRADITION  AT  ROME  229 

another  daughter  who  lived  in  the  Holy  Spirit  and  now  rests  at 
Ephesus;  and  moreover  John,  who  was  both  a  witness  (/la/arv's) 
and  a  teacher,  who  reclined  upon  the  bosom  of  the  Lord,  and 
being  a  priest  wore  the  sacerdotal  plate  (TreVaXov).  He  fell  asleep 
at  Ephesus."  ^ 

Of  this  claim  of  Polycratcs,  addressed  to  Victor,  the  suc- 
cessor of  Eleutherus  as  bishop  of  Rome  (189-199  a.  d,),  in 
behalf  of  Ephesian  Quartodeciman  practice  against  the 
Roman  observance  of  Easter,  each  side  appealing  to  the 
monuments  of  buried  apostles,  we  shall  have  more  to  say 
hereafter.  It  shows  the  tradition  of  the  death  of  the  Apostle 
John  at  Ephesus  to  be  current  in  the  time  of  Polycrates 
(190-200  A.  D.),  together  with  certain  characterizations 
which  we  remember  to  have  met  in  Hegesippus  as  applied 
to  James.  It  is  cited  in  the  present  connection  only  to  illus- 
trate the  competition  for  apostolic  authority  exhibited,  at  a 
slightly  earlier  time,  in  the  rival  claims  of  Gaius  and  Proclus, 
or  else  of  forerunners  of  these. 

For,  only  four  chapters  after  that  on  "the  Order  of  the 
Gospels,"  Eusebius  quotes  again  from  Gaius  (or  Caius), 
showing  something  more  of  the  nature  of  his  Dialogue  or 
Disputation: 

"Caius,  whose  words  we  quoted  above,  in  the  Disputation 
(against  Proclus)  which  is  ascribed  to  him,  writes  as  follows  con- 
cerning this  man  (Cerinthus  the  Docetist):  'But  Cerinthus  also 
by  revelations  which  he  pretends  were  written  by  a  great  apostle, 
brings  before  us  marvellous  things  which  he  falsely  claims  were 
shown  him  by  angels  (Rev.  ig:io;  22:  8);  and  he  says  that  after 
the  resurrection  the  kingdom  of  Christ  will  be  set  up  on  earth, 
and  that  the  flesh  dwelling  in  Jerusalem  will  again  be  subject  to 
desires  and  pleasures.  And  being  an  enemy  of  the  Scriptures  of 
God,^  he  asserts  with  the  purpose  of  deceiving  men,  that  there 

1  Letter  of  Polycrates  of  Ephesus  to  Victor  of  Rome,  cited  ]>y  Eusel)ius, 
H.  E.  V,  xxiv. 

2  C/".  the  "variance"  of  the  Joliannine  writings  from  Ib.c  (Synoj)tic)  Oos- 


230  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

is  to  be  a  period  of  a  thousand  years  for  marriage  festivals 
(Rev.  20:1-5;  21:1-9).'"^ 

Finally  he  gives  an  explicit  though  all  too  brief  description 
of  the  Disputation  itself,  with  a  definition  of  its  purpose: 

"  There  has  reached  us  also  a  Dialogue  of  Caius,  a  very  learned 
man,  which  was  held  at  Rome  under  Zephyrinus,^  with  Proclus, 
who  contended  for  the  Phrygian  heresy.  In  this  he  curbs  the 
rashness  and  boldness  of  his  opponents  in  setting  forth  new 
Scriptures. ^^  ' 

What  these  "new  Scriptures"  were,  besides  the  book  of 
Revelation  contemptuously  ascribed  in  the  preceding  ex- 
tract to  Cerinthus,  Eusebius  docs  not  inform  his  readers, 
confining  himself  to  the  evidence  afforded  on  the  "disputed" 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  that  Caius,  like  the  earUer  Latin 
fathers  generally 

"mentions  only  thirteen  epistles  of  the  holy  apostle  (Paul), 
not  counting  that  to  the  Hebrews  with  the  others."  ^ 

For  Eusebius  at  least  they  will  have  included  the  "Cathohc 
epistle"  which  Themiso,  one  of  the  Phrygian  leaders,  had  ad- 
dressed to  his  adherents  "in  imitation  of  the  Apostle"  as 
was  charged  by  the  orthodox.  The  "new  Scriptures"  to 
which  the  Alogi  objected  will  have  included,  however,  more 
important  writings  than  Themiso's,  if  we  may  judge  from 
other  references. 

Fortunately  the  list  of  Hippolytus'  works  on  the  base  of 

pels  above  referred  to  (p.  227).  In  the  Heads  against  Caius  (see  below) 
Gaius  is  quoted  as  accompanying  each  of  his  strictures  against  Revelation  by 
quotations  from  the  O.  T.,  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  and  the  Pauline  Epistles, 
showing  that  these  presented  a  different  doctrine. 

1  H.  E.  Ill,  xxviii,  i,  2.  Hippolytus  in  the  fifth  of  his  Heads  against 
Gaius  below  cited  replies  to  this  stricture  with  the  explanation  that  the 
"thousand  years"  are  figurative. 

2  On  this  date  see  above,  p.  2 28,  note. 

3  H.  E.  VI,  XX,  3. 
<  Ihid. 


ASIAN  TRADITION  AT  ROME  231 

his  statue  in  the  Latcran  museum,  with  the  recently  recov- 
ered extracts  from  Ebcd-Jesu  in  the  Commentary  on  Revela- 
tion by  Dionysius  Bar-Salibi,  entitled  Heads  against  Gains  ^ 
and  the  borrowings  of  Epiphanius  from  Hippolytus  ^  enable 
us  to  determine  more  exactly  the  nature  of  the  Disputation, 
and  (if  Bar-SaUbi  is  to  be  trusted)  the  "new  Scriptures"  it 
protested  against.  That  the  tone  and  temper  of  Gaius  were 
anything  but  conciliatory  might  be  inferred  from  the  extract 
with  which  Euscbius  favors  us  on  Revelation,  declaring  it  a 
work  of  Ccrinthus  falsely  claiming  to  be  written  by  "a  great 
apostle."  The  inference  is  confirmed  by  the  great  scholar 
Dionysius  of  Alexandria  who  turns  against  the  Chiliast 
Nepos  in  his  own  time  (250  a.  d.)  the  weapon  his  predecessor 
had  forged  against  the  Montanists.  Dionysius  does  not  name 
this  predecessor,  and  of  course  would  not  reproduce  any 
strictures  he  might  fmd  upon  the  Fourth  Gospel,  which  in 
his  day  had  been  for  half  a  century  an  integral  part  of  the 
accepted  fourfold  gospel.  But  the  description  of  his  prede- 
cessor in  this  field  of  criticism  is  not  difficult  to  recognize : 

"Some  before  us  have  set  aside  and  rejected  the  book  (Revela- 
tion) altogether,  criticising  it  chapter  by  chapter,^  and  pronoun- 
cing it  without  sense  or  argument  and  maintaining  that  the  title  is 
fraudulent.  For  they  say  that  it  is  not  the  work  of  John,  nor  is  it 
a  revelation  (unveiling)  because  it  is  covered  thickly  and  densely 
by  a  veil  of  obscurity.  And  they  affirm  that  none  of  the  apostles, 
and  none  of  the  saints,  nor  anyone  in  the  Church  is  its  author, 

1  Published  by  J.  Gwynn  in  Hermathena,  vol.  VI,  397-41S.  Dionysius 
Bar-Salibi  was  bishop  of  Amid  in  1166-1171  a.  d.  The  five  fragments  of 
the  work  of  Hippolytus  published  by  Gwynn  are  extracts  from  the  Com- 
mentary of  Bar-Salibi  on  Revelation,  Acts,  and  the  Pauline  and  Catholic 
Epistles.  Of  course  nothing  appears  of  any  strictures  Caius  may  have 
brought  against  the  Fourth  Gospel.  The  five  extant  apply  to  Rev.  8:  8; 
8:12;  9:2  ff.;  9:14  ff.,  and  20:2  ff. 

2  Hot.  li,  §  4  sqq.  See,  for  the  relation  to  Hippolytus,  Lipsius,  Zur 
Qiiellenkritik  des  Epiphanius,  pp.  233-235. 

3  Cf.  the  method  of  Gaius  in  the  Heads. 


232  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

but  that  Cerinthus,  who  founded  the  sect  which  was  called  after 
him  the  Cerinthian,  desiring  reputable  authority  for  his  fiction, 
prefixed  the  name.  For  the  doctrine  which  he  taught  was  this: 
that  the  kingdom  of  Christ  will  be  an  earthly  one.  And  as  he 
was  himself  devoted  to  the  pleasures  of  the  body,  and  altogether 
sensual  in  his  nature,  he  dreamed  that  that  kingdom  would  con- 
sist in  those  things  which  he  desired,  namely  in  the  delights  of 
the  belly  and  of  sexual  passion;  that  is  to  say  in  eating  and  drink- 
ing and  marrying,  and  in  festivals  and  sacrifices  and  the  slaying 
of  victims,  under  the  guise  of  which  he  thought  he  could  indulge 
his  appetites  with  better  grace!."  ^ 

Dionysius  proceeds  to  say  that  he  himself  "could  not 
venture  to  reject  the  book  (Revelation),  as  many  brethren 
hold  it  in  high  esteem."  He  thinks,  however,  that  it  was 
written  by  "some  other  John"  than  the  Apostle. 

Professor  Stanton,  it  is  true,  is  not  convinced  by  the  argu- 
ment of  Dr.  J.  R.  Harris  ^  that  Gains  rejected  the  Gospel  as 
well  as  the  Apocalypse  of  John.  According  to  Bar-Salibi 
"the  heretic  Gains"  charged  John  with  being  "at  variance 
with  the  other  Gospels"  in  regard  to  the  course  of  events  at 
the  beginning  of  Christ's  ministry.  Whether  the  name 
Gains  is  here  introduced  by  an  editor,  as  Harris  believes,^  or 
comes  from  Bar-Salibi,  or  from  Ebed-Jesu,  makes  very  little 
difference.  Neither  is  Hkcly  to  have  consulted  Eusebius  for 
the  characteristic  phrase  "the  Gospels  are  at  variance,"  nor 
for  the  curious  limitation  to  "the  course  of  events  at  the  be- 
ginning of  Christ's  ministry"  which  also  corresponds  to 
Eusebius'  answer  in  the  same  chapter;  '*  for  Eusebius  here 

1  Eusebius  had  already  quoted  this  tirade  against  Cerinthus  in  immedi- 
ate connection  with  his  extract  from  the  Disputation  of  Gaius  {H .  E.  Ill, 
xxviii).  The  polemic  style  of  the  Roman  anti-Montanist  is  not  difficult  to 
recognize. 

2  Hermas  in  Arcadia  and  other  Essays,  1896. 

3  This  (in  the  twelfth  century)  scandalous  opinion  is  attributed  else- 
where in  the  book  only  to  "a  certain  heretic."     For  the  reason  see  below. 

i  H.  E.  Ill,  xxiv. 


ASIAN  TRADITION  AT  ROME  233 

takes  no  account  of  the  point  raised  in  the  Quartodcciman 
controversy  of  the  conflicting  date  of  the  crucifixion,  nor  of 
the  difference  in  the  number  of  Passovers  referred  to,  but 
confines  himself  to  the  opening  chapters  of  the  Gospel, 
Another  remarkable  coincidence  is  the  fact  that  Epiphanius' 
charge  against  the  "Alogi"  in  a  part  of  his  work  which  is 
admittedly  based  on  the  work  of  Hippolytus,  should  be  in 
precisely  the  same  form;  for  here  too  it  is  a  matter  of  dis- 
agreement of  the  Fourth  with  the  Synoptic  Gospels.  More- 
over, the  reply  to  the  objection  of  the  "heretic"  against  John's 
Gospel  is  introduced  in  Bar-Salibi  with  the  words  "of  the 
holy  Hippolytus  against  him"  and  similar  expressions  intro- 
duce the  replies  in  the  cjuotations  from  the  Heads  against 
Gains. 

But  Professor  Stanton  is  still  unwilling  to  admit  the  iden- 
tity of  the  work  from  which  the  five  Heads  against  Gains  are 
drawn  with  the  Dcjcnce  oj  the  Gospel  according  to  John  and 
the  Apocalypse  named  in  the  list  of  Hippolytus'  works  in  the 
Lateran  inscription.  Hippolytus  might  have  written  two 
works,  he  thinks,  of  similar  bearing,  only  one  of  which  was 
named  on  the  statue.  li;  might  have  been  the  other  book 
which  was  directed  against  Gaius,  and  in  this  not  the  Fourth 
Gospel  be  defended,  but  only  the  Apocalypse.  His  principal 
reasons  are  the  following : 

"  (i)  Gaius  cannot  have  shown  a  disposition  to  reject  the  Gos- 
pel according  to  St.  John  in  his  Dialogue  against  Froclus,  with 
which  Eusebius  was  familiar;  Eusebius  could  not  have  ignored 
so  serious  a  departure  from  the  beliefs  of  his  own  time. 

"(2)  Dr.  Harris  lays  considerable  stress  on  the  facts  that  in 
the  passage  in  which  Barsalibi  records  the  objection  of  'a  certain 
heretic'  to  John's  Gospel,  the  reply  is  introduced  with  the  words 
'of  the  holy  Hippolytus  against  him,'  and  that  similar  expressions 
introduce  the  replies  in  the  quotations  from  the  Heads  against 
Gaius.    But  surely  there  is  nothing  in  this.    It  would  be  natural 


234  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

that  Hippolytus,  or  Barsalibi  in  quoting  him,  should  give  the 
objection  and  the  answer  in  a  similar  manner,  even  though  a  differ- 
ent opponent  was  in  question.  It  may  also  be  asked  why,  if 
Gaius  was  meant,  the  expression  'a  certain  heretic'  should  have 
been  used,  instead  of  his  name  being  given  as  elsewhere."  ^ 

The  reader  need  only  turn  once  more  to  the  chapter  of 
Eusebius  on  "The  Order  of  the  Gospels"  already  cited,  to 
find  an  immediate  answer  to  both  of  Stanton's  objections  to 
Harris'  cogent  arguments.  Eusebius  is  very  far  from  "ignor- 
ing the  serious  departure  from  the  behefs  of  his  own  time" 
revealed  in  the  Disputation.  As  we  have  seen,  he  interjects 
an  antidote  to  the  poison  for  the  benefit  of  any  who  might  be 
led  to  "think  that  the  Gospels  are  at  variance  with  one  an- 
other," confining  himself  to  "the  course  of  events  at  the 
beginning  of  Christ's  ministry."  He  may  even,  like  Epi- 
phanius,  be  indebted  to  "the  holy  Hippolytus"  for  his  har- 
monizing explanation,  though  he  does  not  mention  exphcitly 
the  Defence  among  Hippolytus'  works,  but  limits  his  ac- 
count of  the  strictures  of  Gaius  against  the  "new  Scriptures" 
appealed  to  by  the  Phrygians  to  Revelation,  But  why  should 
Eusebius  lend  weight  to  the  difficulty,  and  increase  the  dan- 
ger to  those  whom  he  warns  against  the  idea  that  "the 
Gospels  are  at  variance"  by  admitting  it  to  have  been  main- 
tained, if  not  originated,  by  the  "very  learned  ecclesiastic" 
and  defender  of  the  faith,  the  revered  presbyter  Gaius  ?  The 
same  considerate  discretion,  with  perhaps  the  example  of 
Eusebius  to  lend  it  greater  weight,  may  well  account  for 
later  writers  preferring  to  attribute  the  scandalous  idea  to  "a 
certain  heretic"  rather  than  to  give  the  name.-  Even  Epi- 
phanius,  whose  principal  claim  to  scholarship  was  his  ability 
to  denounce  in  seven  languages  the  heresies  of  Origen,  an 

^Gospels,   etc.,   "Additional  Note   to  Ch.   V.      Gaius'  Attitude   to   the 
Fourth  Gospel,"  p.  240. 

^  Cf.  Dionysius  of  Alexandria  in  the  extract  above,  "Some  before  us." 


ASIAN  TRADITION  AT  ROME  235 

incomparably  greater  scholar  and  nobler  man  than  himself, 
of  more  recent  date  than  Gains,  would  certainly  not  have 
followed  a  different  course.     Professor  Stanton  argues: 

"We  may  infer  from  Barsalibi  that  in  the  Heads  the  name  of 
Gaius  occurred  repeatedly.  If  the  same  work  lay  before  Epi- 
phanius  it  is  strange  that  this  name  should  not  have  appeared  in 
his  pages.  He  would  not  have  desired  to  suppress  it;  on  the  con- 
trary he  would  have  felt  satisfaction  in  gibbeting  a  misbeliever."^ 

By  similar  reasoning  wc  might  expect  Dr.  Orr  to  "take 
satisfaction"  in  pointing  out  that  John  Calvin  questioned  the 
authenticity  of  II  Pt.,  because,  forsooth,  he  takes  up  the 
cudgels  of  Pentateuch  apologetic  with  alacrity  against  the 
late  W.  Robertson  Smith.  Origen  was  a  dangerous  heretic. 
To  mention  the  eccentricity  of  Gaius  by  name  would  only 
serve  to  besmirch  the  reputation  of  an  honored  defender  of 
the  faith. 

On  the  other  hand,  wc  are  informed  by  other  opponents  of 
Montanism  of  the  same  period  as  Gaius,  that  Montanus  him- 
self claimed  to  fulfil  in  his  own  person  the  promise  of  the 
Paraclete  (Jn.  14:16,  17,  26),  his  pretensions  on  this  score 
being  naturally  even  more  obnoxious  to  the  orthodox  than 
his  millenarianism.  Gaius  had,  therefore,  at  least  as  much 
motive  for  denying  the  apostolic  authorship  of  the  Gospel  as 
of  the  Apocalypse,  and  the  silence  of  later  writers  on  this 
point  cannot  offset  the  clear  evidence  that  Hippolytus  de- 
fended both  against  him.  For  a  theory  which  conjectures 
another  treatise  of  Hippolytus,  not  mentioned  in  the  list  of 
his  works  inscribed  upon  his  monument,  but  similar  in  char- 
acter to  the  Defence  of  the  Gospel  according  to  John  and  the 
Apocalypse,  having  also  the  form  of  replies  to  an  opponent 
and  differing  from  this  Defence  only  in  the  single  respect  that 
in  the  latter  case  the  opponent  was  a  Gaius  who  "cannot 
have  shown  a  disposition  to  reject  the  Gospel  according  to 

1  Ibid.,  p.  240. 


236  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

St.  John,  comes  quite  too  near  the  pattern  of  a  "Hulfshy- 
pothese."  The  outcome  of  the  argument,  accordingly,  can 
only  be  to  make  it  more  probable  than  ever  that  in  his 
Disputation  against  Proclus  the  real  Gaius  did  include  the 
Gospel  as  well  as  the  Apocalypse  of  John  among  the  "new 
Scriptures"  which  he  declared  were  being  brought  in  by  the 
"boldness  and  rashness"  of  his  Asian  opponents.  For  this 
reason  Hippolytus  felt  called  upon  for  a  Defence  of  the  Gospel 
according  to  John  as  well  as  of  the  Apocalypse.  Indeed,  it 
would  seem  to  be  just  the  argument  of  Gaius,  and  none  other, 
which  Eusebius  is  tacitly  refuting  in  the  chapter  discreetly 
headed  "On  the  Order  of  the  Gospels,"  which  he  inserts 
between  two  explicit  quotations  from  the  Disputation  of 
Gaius  against  Proclus,^  next  after  a  chapter  on  "A  Narra- 
tive concerning  John  the  Apostle"  and  next  before  that  on 
"The  Divine  Scriptures  that  are  Accepted  and  those  that 
are  not."  ^  Even,  however,  were  this  not  so,  the  case  remains 
the  same  for  the  opposition  to  the  Fourth  Gospel.  The 
Alogi  presupposed  by  the  Muratorianum  and  by  Irenaeus 
become  anonymous,  but  they  do  not  disappear. 

But  it  is  maintained  by  the  "defenders"  that  we  have  set 
the  date  of  Gaius  much  too  early.  According  to  Zahn  the 
real  Alogi  in  distinction  from  the  Gaius  whom  Hippolytus 
refutes  were  already  in  his  time  (200-234  a.  d.) 

"an  ancient  faction,  which  had  declared  war  upon  all  the 
Johannine  writings,  but  more  particularly  against  the  Apocalypse 
and  the  Gospel.  Not  till  Epiphanius  and  Philaster  of  Brescia 
do  we  obtain  an  explicit  account  of  them."  ^ 

1  H.  E.  II,  XXV,  6,  and  III,  xxxi,  4. 

2  Since  the  enunciation  of  the  above  conjecture  I  find  it  independently 
advanced  as  "  a  guess  "  by  Professor  Sanday,  Criticism,  etc.,  p.  69. 

3  Kanongesch.  Bd.  I,  p.  223.  The  passages  cited  are  Epiph.  Panar,  li; 
Philaster,  Haer.  Ix.  In  particular  Epiph.  §  3  o^re  rb  rov  'Iwdwov  evayy^Xiov 
S^X<'»''''at  oijre  ttjp  dvTov  airoKdXvtpiv;  cf.  Phil,  evangelium  Kara  'ludi'voi;  et 
apocalypsim  ipsius  non  accipiunt.      Epiph.   §  3  Xdyovji  yap  /mtj  elvai  airroL 


ASIAN  TRADITION  AT  ROME  237 

According  to  Zahn's  view  the  "very  learned  ecclesiastic 
Gaius"  would  merely  have  borrowed  from  an  eccentric  fac- 
tion of  the  Church,  which  had  already  been  crushingly  an- 
swered by  no  less  an  authority  than  Ircna^us,  and  whose 
views  had  already  been  condemned  in  such  a  quasi-ofhcial 
document  as  the  Miiratorianum.     For  as  he  well  says: 

"In  the  Canon  of  Muratori  the  discussion  on  the  Gospel  and 
First  Epistle  of  John  bears  an  unmistakably  apologetic  char- 
acter, whereas  the  Apocalypse  appears  to  be  less  in  need  of  de- 
fense; unless  indeed  the  sentence  in  which  it  was  discussed  has 
reached  us  in  a  completely  confused  condition.^  A  serious  and 
threatening  assault  upon  the  Apocalypse  can  hardly  at  that  time 
have  taken  place  within  the  ken  of  the  fragmentist  (author  of  the 
Canon)  in  Rome,  and  her  dependent  churches.  But  only  a  very 
short  time  can  have  elapsed  before  the  Disputation  occurred  in 
Rome  between  the  Montanist  Proclus  and  the  Catholic  Gaius, 
in  which  the  latter  laid  down  the  thesis,  among  other  propositions 
affecting  the  canon,  that  the  Apocalypse  purporting  to  be  by  the 
Apostle  was  a  work  of  the  heretic  Cerinthus."  ^ 

If  the  Eusebian  dating  of  the  Disputation  under  Zephyrinus 
must  stand,  Gaius'  work  must  indeed  sink  to  this  level  of 
second-hand  heresy.  The  real  Alogi  will  be  not  his  followers, 
but  certain  unknown  predecessors,  who  a  full  generation  be- 
fore had  awakened  the  opposition  of  both  the  Muratorian 
fragmentist  and  of  Irenaeus.  Nameless  they  will  have  been, 
but  far  from  voiceless  or  without  influence,  since  in  spite  of 
this  opposition  in  high  quarters  they  won  to  themselves  such 

'Iwivvov  dXXa  'Ky)plvdov\  cf.  Phil,  ut  etiam  Cerinthi  illius  hteretici  esse  (sc. 
evangclium)  audeant  dicere,  (et)  apocalypsim  ipsius  itidem  non  beati 
Joannis  evangelistic  et  apostoli,  sed  Cerinthi  hseretici.  Philaster  rests 
on  the  same  source  as  Epiphanius. 

1  An  allusion  to  his  own  conjecture  that  the  words  et  Petri  in  the  sentence 
"We  receive  the  Apocalypse  of  John  and  of  Peter  only"  may  be  interpo- 
lated. 

2  Kanongesch.  I,  p.  222. 


238  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

an  adherent  as  Gaius,  who  adopts  even  their  most  incredible 
tenet,  the  ascription  of  Revelation  (!)  to  the  Docetist  Cerin- 
thus.  They  even  called  forth  at  least  one  Defence  0}  the 
Gospel  according  to  John  and  the  Apocalypse  from  the  great 
scholar  Hippolytus  some  fifty  years  after  their  objections 
had  been  raised. 

To  ourselves  such  a  conception  of  events  cannot  but  seem 
less  probable  than  that  defended  by  scholars  so  opposite  in 
tendency  as  Salmon  and  Schwartz  that  "the  Alogi  of  Epi- 
phanius  are  Gaius  and  nobody  else."  Unless  the  expressions 
of  Eusebius  in  describing  the  contents  of  the  Disputation  are 
most  deceptive,  as  well  as  the  coincidence  of  his  phraseology 
in  the  chapter  on  "The  Order  of  the  Gospels"  with  those  of 
Epiphanius  and  Bar-Salibi,  the  real  nucleus  of  opposition  to 
the  Asian  canon  which  purported  to  be  by  "a  great  apostle," 
if  not  its  earliest  germ,  was  the  Disputation  of  Gaius  against 
Proclus.  In  that  case  of  course  the  Disputation  must  be 
dated  earlier  than  Irenseus,  earlier  than  the  Muratorianum, 
in  all  probabihty  ca.  180  a.  d. 

Either  way  it  was  the  advent  of  Montanism,  the  Phrygian 
heresy,  to  Rome,  which  aroused  aggressive  opposition  to  their 
"new  Scriptures;"  and  concerning  the  date  of  the  appear- 
ance of  Montanism  some  further  evidence  is  fortunately 
available.     But  we  must  first  consider  the  Muratorianum. 

The  Muratorianum  contains  but  one  clear  indication  of 
its  date,  the  reference  to  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas  as  having 
been 

"written  quite  recently  in  our  own  times  (nuperrime  tempori- 
bus  nostris)  in  the  city  of  Rome  by  Hermas,  while  his  brother 
Pius  occupied  the  seat  of  Bishop  of  the  church  of  Rome"  (130- 
155  A.  D.). 

It  seems  much  like  reasoning  in  a  circle  to  argue  that  because 
the  Alogi  cannot  have  appeared  so  early  as  170-180  a.  d., 
and  the  Muratorianum  opposes  them,  therefore  it  must  be 


ASIAN  TRADITION  AT  ROME  239 

put  as  late  as  200-210  a.  d.^  Moreover,  while  the  Leucian 
Ads  oj  John  (170?  a.  d.)  may  possibly  show  an  indirect  in- 
fluence we  are  by  no  means  forced  to  date  the  Muratorianiim 
so  late  as  200-210  a.  d.  by  the  mere  fact  that  it  refers  to  "the 
founder  of  the  Kataphrygians  of  Asia,"  apparently  among 
the  heretics,-  nor  by  the  (perhaps)  undisputed  position  it 
accords  to  Revelation.  The  battle  for  Revelation  had  been 
won  long  since  by  Papias,  Justin,  and  MeHto  of  Sardis.^  Its 
"less  need  of  defense"  than  the  Gospel  is  rather  a  proof  that 
we  have  not  yet  come  to  the  long  period  of  questioning 
marked  by  Hippolytus'  treatise  on  that  subject,  called  forth 
by  the  reaction  against  Montanistic  "prophecy."  The  ex- 
trusion of  the  "Kataphrygians"  was  the  work  of  Elcutherus 
(174-189  A.  D.)  under  whom  Irenaeus  wrote  his  work  Against 
Heresies  (186-189);  but  the  Muratorianum  is  not  affected 
by  the  epoch-making  representations  of  Irenaeus  concerning 
the  residence  and  death  of  John  in  Asia.  On  the  contrary, 
the  Muratorianum,  as  we  have  seen,  makes  the  stay  of  John 
in  Patmos  an  episode  of  his  career  earlier  than  the  coming  of 
Paul  to  Ephesus.  The  writing  of  the  Gospel,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  related  in  manifest  dependence  on  Jn.  21:  24  as  a 
joint  work  of  the  entire  apostolic  college  (cohortantibus  con- 
discipulis  ct  cpiscopis  suis  .  .  .  rcvelatum  Andreas  ex 
apostolis  ut  rccogniscentibus  cunctis,  etc.).  It  is  represented 
as  "fourth"  and  last  of  the  Gospels  and  as  settling  the  de- 
bated c[uestion  of  "order"  (quse  vidimus  .  .  .  et  manus 
nostras  palpaverunt  .  .  .  per  ordinem  profetetur).  In 
the  absence  of  the  slightest  suggestion  of  a  general  migration 
of  the  apostles  and  disciples  to  Asia  a  la  Irenaeus  we  have 
no  excuse  for  understanding  the   scene   to  be   other  than 

1  Th.  Zahn  in  Hauck's  Realcncyklopddie,  s.  v.  "Kanon  Muratori,"  p.  798. 

2  The  fragment  breaks  off  with  Assianom  catafrjxum  constituto- 
reni  .  .  .  the  middle  word  being  a  mere  mistranslation  of  twv  Kard, 
4>pvyas    It  probably  went  on  to  condemn  Montanus. 

3  On  Meiito's  work  On  the  Revelation  of  John,  see  below. 


240  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Jerusalem,  the  accepted  seat  of  "the  apostles  and  elders" 
throughout  the  second  century.  A  demurrer  may  therefore 
be  reasonably  interposed  to  dates  later  than  185  a.  d.  for  the 
Muratorianum,  even  while  we  decHne  to  fix  it  more  nearly 
than  in  the  period  of  the  conflict  at  Rome  over  Asian  claims 
to  apostolic  authority,  and  rest  our  case  for  the  course  of 
events  on  other  evidence. 

Whether  then  the  Alogi  took  their  rise  from  Gains  or  con- 
versely, there  is  no  dispute  that  opposition  to  the  Fourth 
Gospel  appears  first  at  Rome  about  170-180  a.  d.  as  an 
outgrowth  of  resistance  to  the  "Phrygians."  ^  On  this  point 
the  reference  of  Irenasus  (186  A.  d.)  is  decisive: 

"These  things  being  so  (the  correspondence  of  the  four  Gospels 
to  the  four  winds,  four  elements,  four  cherubim,  etc.)  all  who 
destroy  the  form  of  the  (fourfold)  Gospel  are  vain,  unlearned,  and 
also  audacious,  those  (I  mean)  who  represent  the  aspects  of  the 
Gospel  as  being  either  more  in  number  than  aforesaid  or  on  the 
other  hand  fewer.  .  .  .  Others  again  (the  Alogi;  he  has 
previously  spoken  of  Marcion  and  those  who  admit  fewer  than 
four  gospels),  that  they  may  set  at  nought  the  gift  of  the  Spirit, 
which  in  the  latter  times  has  been  poured  out  by  the  good  pleasure 
of  the  Father  upon  the  human  race,  do  not  admit  that  aspect 
presented  by  John's  Gospel,  in  which  the  Lord  promised  that  he 
would  send  the  Paraclete  ^  but  set  aside  together  both  the  Gospel 
and  the  prophetic  Spirit.  Wretched  men  indeed,  who  will  have 
it  that  there  are  pseudo-prophets,  forsooth,  but  who  repudiate 
the  gift  of  prophecy  from  the  Church  (read:  infelices  vere  qui 
pseudoprophetas  quidem  esse  volunt,  propheticam  vero  gratiam 
repellunt  ab  ecclesia);  acting  like  those  who,  on  account  of  such 
as  come  in  hyprocrisy  hold  aloof  from  the  communion  of  the 
brethren.    We  should  conclude,  further,  that  these  (Alogi)  would 

1  Harnack  {Chron.,  p.  379)  dates  the  appearance  of  the  Alogi  at  Rome 
"not  much  later  than  165."  He  thinks  the  beginnings  of  opposition  to  the 
Johannine  writings  on  the  part  of  the  orthodox  at  Rome  cannot  have  been 
so  late  as  175-180. 

2  See  above  p.  235. 


ASIAN  TRADITION  AT  ROME  241 

not  admit  the  Apostle  Paul  cither,  since  in  his  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians  he  speaks  expressly  of  prophetical  gifts,  and  recog- 
nizes men  and  women  prophesying  in  the  Church.  Sinning  there- 
fore in  all  these  particulars  against  the  Spirit  of  God,  they  (the 
Alogi)  fall  into  the  unpardonable  sin.  Those  who  are  from 
Valentinus,  on  the  contrary,  being  altogether  reckless,  while 
putting  forth  their  own  compositions,  boast  that  they  possess 
more  gospels  than  there  really  are."  ^ 

How  comes  it  that  Ircnaeus  in  the  midst  of  all  this  turmoil 
in  Rome  about  the  JMontanists  and  their  claims  to  exercise 
the  spirit  of  prophecy  presents  no  single  reference  in  all  his 
voluminous  writings  to  the  "heresy"  save  this  one,  in  which 
he  manifestly  sympathizes  much  more  nearly  with  the 
Phrygians  than  with  their  opponents  ?  '  To  understand  this 
we  must  look  back  for  a  moment  at  the  origin  of  the  sect 
and  the  occasion  of  its  prominence  in  Rome, 

Modern  authorities  are  agreed  in  recognizing  that  Euse- 
bius  has  dated  the  origin  of  Alontanism  too  late.  His  date 
(172  A,  D.)  appears  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  superficial  in- 
ference from  that  of  the  writing  of  Apollinaris  of  Hierapolis 
against  the  heresy  (171  a.  d.).  On  the  contrary,  the  death  of 
ISIaximilla,  last  of  the  Montanistic  prophetic  succession, 
which  after  Montanus  had  been  continued  by  Priscilla,  is 
securely  fixed  in  the  year  179.  The  Roman  bishop  Soter, 
who  died  in  174,  is  said  to  have  written  against  the  Montan- 
ists,'  and  two  separate  passages  of  Epiphanius,  who  though 

1  Haer.  Ill,  xi,  9. 

2  The  absence  of  the  names  connected  with  the  Montanist  controversy 
at  Rome  from  the  list  of  Hippolytus'  32  heretics  in  the  treatise  Against  all 
Heresies,  which  professed  to  reproduce  the  lectures  of  Irena:us,  so  im- 
pressed Lipsius  that  he  even  carried  back  the  treatise  to  the  time  of  Victor 
(188-199  A.  D.).  Irenaeus  of  course  could  not  include  Praxeas  or  Gaius,  and 
would  not  include  Proclus  or  others  on  the  Asian  side.  The  treatise  of  Hip- 
polytus belongs  in  the  earlier  years  of  Zephyrinus  (Salmon,  Diet.  Ckr.  Biogr. 
Ill,  p.  94). 

3  The  statement  of  Pra;destinatus  [Haer.  xxvi  (86)]  to  this  effect  has  been 
disputed;  but  see  Harnack,  Chron.,  p.  369. 

Fourth  Gospel — 16 


242  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

a  blunderer  himself  borrows  from  good  authorities,  especially 
from  Hippolytus,  give  coincidently  the  year  156-157  a.  d. 
for  the  appearance  of  the  movement  in  Asia.^  Here  it 
awakened  intense  opposition  among  the  conservative  leaders 
of  the  Church,  not  because  of  heretical  opinion,  for  its  teach- 
ings were  admittedly  orthodox,  or  even  reactionary  in  what 
would  to-day  be  called  their  millenarian  evangehcalism. 
The  bishops  of  Asia  were  scandaHzcd  by  the  mantic  excesses 
of  those  who  professed  to  possess  "the  prophetic  Spirit,"  and 
especially  by  the  prominence  given  to  the  two  "prophet- 
esses" Priscilla  and  Maximilla,  suspecting,  not  without  rea- 
son, the  reappearance  in  Christian  guise  of  the  characteristic 
religious  frenzy  of  Phrygian  heathenism.  Miltiades  (161- 
169  A.  D.)  wrote  against  them  his  tract  Hepl  tov  fxr)  Selv 
7rpo(f)'^rr)v  ev  eKardaet  \a\etv  ("That  a  prophet  ought  not 
to  speak  in  ecstasy  ").  Bishops  Zoticus  of  Comana  and  Juhan 
of  Apamea,  or  ^Ehus  Publius  JuHus  of  Debeltum  and  Sotas 
of  Anchialus,  as  Scrapion  of  Antioch  (ca.  200  a.  d.)  gives  the 
names,  undertook  "to  cast  the  demon  out  of  Priscilla" 
(Maximilla),^  but  were  prevented  by  the  followers  of  Themiso, 

1  The  passages  are  Haer.  xlviii,  i  and  2.  On  the  combinations  by  which 
Zahn,  Harnack  and  Bonwetsch  come  to  agreement  on  the  year  156-157 
A.  D.  for  Montanus  see  Zahn,  Forsch.  v.  25  ff.,  Harnack,  Chron.,  358  flf.,  and 
Hauck,  Realencykl.  s.  v.  "Montanismus."  The  passage  Haer.  \\,  33,  con- 
tains some  blunder,  but  is  probably  taken  from  Hippolytus.  Salmon 
{Diet,  of  Chr.  Biogr.  s.  v.  "Montanus,"  p.  937,  note)  reasonably  conjectures 
"birth"  instead  of  "ascension,"  making  it  read  in  substance  "John,  writing 
93  years  after  our  Lord's  birth  {cf.  Irenacus  on  the  date  of  Revelation)  had 
foretold  this  (destruction  of  the  church  in  Thyatira),  what  he  says  about 
the  woman  Jezebel  being  a  prediction  of  the  Montanist  prophetess.  But 
now,  after  112  years  there  is  again  a  church  in  Thyatira  which  by  God's 
help  will  increase."  The  date  93-1-112=205  A.  D.  is  that  to  which  Hip- 
polytus' Defence  of  the  Gospel  and  A  pocalypse  of  John  may  reasonably  be 
assigned  (see  above,  p.  241,  note  2).  Epiphanius  himself  was  writing  in 
375  A.  D.  so  that  he  is  clearly  borrowing. 

2  So  Serapion  of  Antioch  {ca.  200  A.  D.)  ap.  Eusebius,  H.  E.  V,  xix,  3.  Ac- 
cording to  Apollonius  of  Ephesus  (196-197  A.  d.,  ibid.  Y,xvm,  13)  the  at- 
tempt was  made  against  Maximilla  by  Zoticus  of  Comana  and  Julian  of 


ASIAN  TRADITION  AT  ROME  243 

then  the  head  (or  "steward")  of  the  sect,  who  naturally 
resented  this  insult  to  their  "prophetess."  The  effort  to 
suppress  them  did  not  stop  with  this  failure.  The  anony- 
mous anti-AIontanist  quoted  by  Eusebius  (Rhodon?  ca. 
192  A.  D.)  declares  that: 

"The  faithful  in  Asia  met  often  in  many  places  throughout 
Asia  to  consider  this  matter,  and  examined  the  novel  utterances, 
and  pronounced  them  profane,  and  rejected  the  heresy,  and  thus 
these  persons  were  expelled  from  the  Church  and  debarred  from 
communion."  ^ 

E^•en  the  common  suffering  of  martyrdom  could  not 
reconcile  the  estrangement.  A  little  further  on  the  same 
writer  reported: 

"When  those  called  to  martyrdom  from  the  Church  for  the 
truth  of  the  faith  have  met  with  any  of  the  so-called  martyrs  of 
the  Phrygian  heresy,  they  have  separated  from  them,  and  died 
without  any  fellowship  with  them,  because  they  did  not  wish  to 
give  their  assent  to  the  spirit  of  Montanus  and  the  women.  And 
that  this  is  true  and  took  place  in  our  own  time  in  Apamea  on 
the  Ma?ander,  among  those  who  suffered  martyrdom  with  Gaius 
and  Alexander  of  Eumenia,  is  well  known."  ^ 

The  Montanists  on  their  part  complained  bitterly  of  this 
treatment.  One  of  their  writers  named  Asterius  Urbanus 
gave  as  a  word  of  "the  Spirit"  uttered  through  Maximilla: 

"I  am  driven  away  from  the  sheep  like  a  wolf.  I  am  not  a 
wolf.    I  am  word  and  spirit  and  power."  ^ 

The  aggrieved  parties  were  not  content  to  remain  under  the 

ban  without  protest.     Rome  had  intervened  at  Corinth  two 

generations   before,    and    to    Rome    they    appealed,      Ter- 

Apamea  {H.  E.  V,  xvi,  17).  The  similarity  of  the  names  Zoticus  and  Sotas, 
Julius  and  Julianas,  leads  authorities  such  as  Lightfoot  (Ignatius,  II,  iii) 
and  Harnack  (Chron.,  p.  366)  to  identify  the  two  attempts. 

1  H.  E.  V,  xvi,  10. 

2  Ibid.  V,  xvi,  22. 

3  Ibid. 


244  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

tullian,  who  himself  became  later  a  convert  to  Montanism, 
reports  that  Praxeas,  his  opponent,  came  to  Rome  from  Asia 

"inflated  with  the  pride  of  confessorship  (martyrdom)  simply 
and  solely  because  he  had  to  bear  for  a  short  time  the  annoyance 
of  a  prison For  after  the  bishop  of  Rome  ^  had  ac- 
knowledged the  prophetic  gifts  of  Montanus,  Prisca  and  Maxi- 
milla,  and  in  consequence  of  the  acknowledgment  had  bestowed 
his  peace  on  the  churches  of  Asia  and  Phrygia,  he  (Praxeas), 
by  importunately  urging  false  accusations  against  the  prophets 
themselves  and  their  churches,  and  insisting  on  the  authority  of 
the  bishop's  predecessors  in  the  see,"  compelled  him  to  recall  the 
pacific  letter  which  he  had  issued,  as  well  as  to  desist  from  his 
purpose  of  acknowledging  the  said  gift."  ^ 

Who,  then,  had  come  before  Praxeas  to  win  from  Eleutherus 
the  "pacific  letter"  by  which  he  would  have  "bestowed  his 
peace"  on  the  warring  churches  of  Asia? 

We  are  tempted  to  think  of  Proclus  himself  as  the  one  who 
had  so  eloquently  and  persuasively  pleaded  the  cause  of  the 
outraged  Montanists  before  Eleutherus;  for  TertulHan  refers 
to  him  in  connection  with  Justin,  Miltiades,  and  Irenaeus  as 
not  only  men  of  an  earlier  time  than  his  own,^  but  "con- 
temporary with  the  (Valentinian)  heresiarchs  themselves." 
Among  these  authors  of  "carefully  written  volumes"  against 
the  Valentinians  "our  own  Proculus"  was  "the  model  of 
chaste  old  age  and  Christian  eloquence."  ^  But  whether 
Proclus  had  part  in  the  appeal  or  not,  we  have  already 
learned  of  one  who  came  as  bearer  of  a  letter  from  the  mar- 
tyrs of  Lyons  entreating  Eleutherus  to  "restore  peace  to  the 
churches."    The  sentiments  of  Irenaeus  may  be  guessed  by 

1  Eleutherus;  see  Harnack,  Chroti.,  p.  375. 

2  Soter  {ob.  174  A.  D.)  had  written  against  the  Montanists  according  to 
Prffidestinatus.     See  above,  p.  241,  note  3. 

3  Adv.  Prax.  i. 

*  The  treatise  in  question  seems  to  be  written  in  200-207  A.  D. 
^  Adv.  Val.  V. 


ASIAN  TRADITION  AT  ROME  245 

what  he  writes  under  Eleutherus  (before  the  reversal  of  his 
decision?)  concerning  "those  wretched  men  who  .  .  . 
set  at  nought  the  gift  of  the  Spirit  poured  out  in  the  latter' 
times  by  the  good  pleasure  of  the  Father  .•  .  .  who  will 
have  it  that  there  are  pseudo-prophets,  forsooth,  but  who 
repudiate  the  gift  of  prophecy  from  the  Church."  Irenaeus, 
we  remember,  defended  specifically  the  prophesying  of  women 
by  the  example  of  Paul  in  I  Cor.  11:5. 

A  factor  in  the  crisis,  perhaps  the  decisive  factor  in  carrying 
Eleutherus  so  far  toward  a  nulHfication  of  the  ban  pro- 
nounced by  the  bishops  of  Asia,  must  have  been  the  letter 
addressed  to  him  from  prison  by  the  martyrs  of  Lyons  in 
Gaul,  "negotiating  for  the  peace  of  the  churches."  The 
relations  of  the  Gallican  Church  to  the  Asian  were  of  the 
closest;  more  than  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  these  martyrs 
themselves  being  immigrants  from  Phrygia  and  Asia.  They 
wrote,  says  Eusebius, 

"to  the  brethren  throughout  Asia  and  Phrygia,  and  also  to 
Eleutherus,  who  was  then  bishop  of  Rome,  negotiating  for  the 
peace  of  the  churches."  ^ 

The  bearer  of  the  letter,  whose  date  can  be  fixed  with  cer- 
tainty in  178-179  A.  D.,  was  Irenaeus,  whom  the  writers  recom- 
mended as  their  "brother  and  comrade"  and  a  "presbyter 
of  the  church,"  hinting  very  broadly  that  a  similar  position 
at  Rome,  if  open,  would  be  well  suited  to  his  capacity. 

Eusebius,  it  is  true,  would  not  have  referred  to  the  judg- 
ment of  the  GalUcan  martyrs  on  the  Montanistic  schism  as 
both  "prudent  and  most  orthodox,"  if  it  had  not  condemned 
the  excesses  of  the  new  prophetism,  so  that  Pearson  and 
others  who  think  they  asked  reversal  of  the  ban  pronounced 
in  Asia  clearly  exaggerate.  On  the  other  hand,  the  altogether 
sympathetic  attitude  of  Irenaeus  toward  the  recent  mani- 

1 H.  E.  V,  iii,  4- 


246  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

festations  of  "the  gift  of  the  Spirit,"  his  severe  denunciation 
of  the  "wretched  men  who  ...  set  aside  the  gift  of 
prophecy  from  the  Church,"  and  his  defense  of  the  exercise 
of  prophetic  gifts  by  both  men  and  women,  would  be  inex- 
plicable if  the  object  of  his  mission  had  been  hostile  to  the 
Montanists.  Indeed,  TertulHan's  grouping  of  him  some 
twenty  years  after  with  Justin  and  "our  own  Proculus"  as 
worthy  of  gratitude  for  their  defense  of  the  Church  against 
the  Valentinians,  would  be  passing  strange  if  Irenaeus  had 
taken  the  part  of  Praxeas.  There  remains  but  a  single  possi- 
bihty.  It  is  that  which  all  our  knowledge  of  Irenaeus  and  of 
the  GalHcan  churches  which  he  represented  would  suggest. 
It  is  the  course  which  we  find  him  repeating  in  a  new  clash 
with  Asia  under  Victor,  the  successor  of  Eleutherus,  and  for 
which  Eusebius  commends  him  as  well  named  (Irenaeus= 
"man  of  peace").  The  poHcy  counseled  by  the  GalHcan 
martyrs  and  by  Irenaeus  their  representative  was  a  mediat- 
ing one.  Its  watchwords  were  "prudence"  and  "peace." 
Doubtless  Tertullian  exaggerates  the  favorableness  of  the 
verdict  Eleutherus  would  have  pronounced  had  not  Praxeas 
intervened  with  his  detestable  intolerance;  but  Eusebius  and 
TertulUan  are  at  one  as  to  its  pacific  aim,  and  the  attitude  of 
Irenaeus  both  in  relation  to  "the  prophetic  gift"  and  later  in 
the  paschal  controversy  proves  how  keenly  alive  he  was  to 
the  necessity  of  toleration  and  catholicity  in  the  face  of  the 
inroads  of  Gnosticism. 


CHAPTER  X 

IRENAEUS   THE   MEDIATOR   AND    THE    FOURFOLD   GOSPEL 

The  course  of  events  in  the  matter  of  "the  Phrygian 
heresy"  throws  Hght  upon  that  in  another  great  controversy 
which  agitated  the  churches  of  Asia  during  the  same  period 
(150-200  A.  D.)  and  came  to  involve  the  respective  claims  of 
Asia  and  Rome  to  apostoHc  authority,  and  in  the  end  those 
of  the  Gospel  ascribed  to  John.  Once  more  Ircna^us  comes 
to  the  front,  this  time  no  longer  as  representing  the  church  of 
Lyons  alone,  but  on  his  own  authority.  Still,  however,  it  is 
the  same  cathohc  policy  which  he  pursues,  a  pohcy  illus- 
trated in  the  mean  time  in  still  a  third  instance  by  his  letter 
of  remonstrance  to  the  Quartodcciman  Blastus,  who  was 
"disturbing  the  sound  ordinance  of  the  church  at  Rome." 
This  was  entitled  On  Schism.  The  very  title  suggests  a  view 
of  the  dominant  motive  and  attitude  of  Irenaeus  which  will  be 
of  value  in  our  judgment  of  his  testimony. 

Both  before,  and  during,  and  after  the  turmoil  about  "the 
prophetic  spirit"  and  its  manifestations,  the  churches  of  Asia 
were  torn  by  disputes  about  their  observance  of  Passover 
coincidently  with  the  Jews  on  the  fourteenth  Nisan,  those 
who  followed  this  practice  being  designated  from  it  Quarto- 
decimans;  ^  whereas  the  churches  of  the  west,  as  well  as  those 
everywhere  less  affected  by  inheritance  from  the  Syna- 
gogue, merely  heightened  the  weekly  observance  of  the 
Lord's  day  at  the  Easter  season.  As  the  fourteenth  Nisan 
might  fall  on  any  day  of  the  week,  the  fast  by  which  the 

1 1,  e.,  "observers  of  the  Fourteenth." 
247 


248  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Lord's  death  was  commemorated  being  broken  at  dawn  of 
the  fifteenth  by  a  "breaking  of  bread"  commemorative  of 
the  resurrection,  it  not  infrequently  happened  that  while  the 
church  in  one  place  was  fasting,  in  another  it  was  feasting. 
To  the  Oriental  mind,  and  in  fact  the  liturgical  spirit  of  the 
age  in  general,  it  was  a  crying  scandal  that  some  Christians 
might  even  be  engaged  in  Easter  rejoicings  on  Good  Friday 
itself.  Roman  practice  is  unmistakably  set  forth  in  the 
Roman  Gospel  of  Mark,  whose  carefully  marked  divisions 
of  time  in  the  section  on  the  Passion  and  Resurrection  ^  are 
adapted  to  the  vigil,  fast,  and  resurrection  rejoicings  of  this 
church.  Mark  determines  Synoptic  tradition,  committing  it 
to  the  fifteenth  Nisan  as  date  of  the  crucifixion.  But  Asia, 
as  we  might  expect,  followed  another  practice.  For  it  was 
from  Ephesus  that  Paul  himself  had  written  to  the  Corin- 
thians exhorting  a  worthy  celebration  on  Nisan  14th  of  "  Christ 
our  Passover  sacrificed  for  us"  and  on  Nisan  i6th,  the  legal 
day  of  "  Firstf ruits "  a  remembrance  of  Christ's  being  raised 
"the  third  day"  the  "  'firstfruits'  of  them  that  slept."  ^  Asia 
became  the  primal  seat  of  Quartodccimanism,  claiming  to 
have  practised  the  observance  of  the  day  since  the  times  of 
the  apostles.  In  the  year  154  came  the  first  clash  of  which 
we  have  record.  The  same  Irenasus  whom  we  have  seen  but 
now  expostulating  with  Blastus  for  the  promotion  of  schism 
by  his  advocacy  of  Quartodeciman  practice  at  Rome,^  in- 
forms us  of  the  circumstances  in  a  letter  of  expostulation  ad- 
dressed to  Victor  then  bishop  of  Rome, 

"admonishing  him  that  he  should  not  cut  off  whole  churches 

1  Mk.  14:12,  17,  30-72;  15:1,  25,  ;}:i,  34  £f.,  42;  16:2,  9.  See  Bacon, 
Beginnings  of  Gospel  Story,  1909,  on  these  passages. 

2  1  Cor.  5:  6-8;  15:  20. 

3  It  is  pseudo-Tertullian  (Hippolytus?)  who  in  his  trea.tise  Against  all 
Heresies  (Chapter  VIII)  informs  us  of  the  nature  of  Blastus'  schism.  Pa- 
cianus  {Epist.  ad  Sempron.  ii)  adds  that  he  was  a  Montanist  also,  which 
agrees  with  the  general  practice  of  the  Montanists  of  Asia. 


THE  FOURFOLD  GOSPEL  249 

of  God  for  observing  the  tradition  of  an  ancient  custom.  For 
the  controversy  is  not  only  concerning  the  day,  but  also  concern- 
ing the  very  manner  of  the  fast.  For  some  think  they  should  fast 
one  day,  others  two,  yet  others  more.^  Some  moreover  count  their 
day  as  consisting  of  forty  hours  day  and  night. ^  And  this  variety 
in  its  observance  has  not  originated  in  our  time,  but  long  before 
in  that  of  our  ancestors.  It  is  likely  that  they  did  not  hold  to 
strict  accuracy,  and  thus  formed  a  custom  for  their  posterity 
according  to  their  own  simplicity  and  peculiar  mode.  Yet  all  of 
these  lived  none  the  less  in  peace,  and  we  also  (in  Gaul)  live  in 
peace  with  one  another;  and  the  disagreement  in  regard  to  the 
fast  confirms  the  agreement  in  the  faith. 

"Among  these  (catholic  spirits)  were  the  presbyters  before 
Soter,  who  presided  over  the  church  which  thou  now  rulest.  We 
mean  Anicetus,  and  Pius,  and  Hyginus,  and  Telesphorus,  and 
Xystus.  They  neither  observed  it  (the  fast  of  14th  Nisan)  them- 
selves, nor  did  they  permit  those  after  them  to  do  so.  And  yet, 
though  not  observing  it,  they  were  none  the  less  at  peace  with 
those  who  came  to  them  from  the  parishes  in  which  it  was  ob- 
served; although  this  observance  was  more  opposed  to  those  who 
did  not  observe  it.  But  none  were  ever  cast  out  on  account  of 
this  form;  but  the  presbyters  before  thee  who  did  not  observe  it 
sent  the  eucharist  (to  be  used  at  breaking  of  the  fast)  to  those  of 
other  parishes  who  observed  it.  And  when  the  blessed  Polycarp 
was  at  Rome  in  the  time  of  Anicetus,  and  they  disagreed  a  little 
about  certain  other  things,  they  immediately  made  peace  with  one 
another,  not  caring  to  quarrel  over  this  matter.  For  neither  could 
Anicetus  persuade  Polycarp  not  to  observe  what  he  had  always 
observed  with  John  the  disciple  of  our  Lord,  and  the  other  apostles 

1  According  to  the  varying  ideas  of  the  moment  of  the  resurrection. 
,2  Thus  the  Syriac  Didaskalia  counts  the  period  between  the  darkness 
from  the  sixth  to  the  ninth  hour  (Mk.  15:33-39)  as  a  night,  and  the  re- 
newed light  from  the  ninth  to  the  twelfth  hour,  when  "the  sun  shone  out 
and  it  was  found  to  be  the  ninth  hour,  and  the  Jews  rejoiced"  (Ev.  Petri), 
as  an  additional  day.  This  with  the  ensuing  15th  Nisan  until  dawn  of  the 
day  of  "Firstfruits"  made  a  total  of  40  hours  and  at  the  same  time  covered 
the  prophecy  about  rising  "after  three  days." 


250  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

with  whom  he  had  associated;  neither  could  Polycarp  persuade 
Anicetus  to  observe  it."  ^ 

We  encounter  here  for  the  first  time  the  celebrated  asser- 
tion of  Irenaeus  regarding  the  personal  relations  of  Polycarp 
with  John  the  disciple  of  our  Lord  and  the  other  apostles 
"with  whom  he  had  associated"  which  subsequently  played 
so  momentous  a  part,  becoming  from  this  time  onward  the 
principal  reliance  of  "defenders." 

Had  Irenaeus,  then,  any  grounds  for  the  assertion  that 
Polycarp  had  observed  the  Quartodeciman  fast  "with  John 
and  other  apostles,"  besides  such  as  Chihasts  like  Papias, 
Justin,  and  Melito  were  urging  on  behalf  of  the  authenticity 
of  Revelation,  or  Quartodecimans  like  Blastus  and  Montan- 
ists  like  Proclus  were  urging  on  behalf  of  the  whole  Instru- 
mentum  Johanneum  and  the  apostolic  succession  in  Asia? 
We  are  not  favorably  disposed  by  Irenaeus'  pretensions  in 
regard  to  Papias,  whom  in  spite  of  that  author's  own  testi- 
mony, carefully  gone  over  by  Eusebius,  he  insists  on  making 
"a  man  of  the  carHest  times,  a  hearer  of  John,"  confusing 
for  the  purpose  the  Jerusalem  Elder  of  that  name,  whose 
7rapa86a-ei<i  were  reported  by  Papias  at  second  hand,  with 
"John  the  disciple  of  the  Lord."  Moreover  the  phraseology 
here  and  elsewhere  employed  by  Irenaeus,  and  the  reference 
to  "the  other  apostles"  make  it  apparent  that  the  fore- 
ground of  his  mind  is  occupied,  as  usual,  by  the  group  of 
"apostles,  elders,  and  disciples  of  the  Lord"  whom  he 
imagines  to  be  the  immediate  informants  of  Papias,  and 
whom  he  also  identifies  (in  this  agreeing  with  the  Mura- 
torianum)  with  the  group  of  witnesses  who  vouch  for  the 
fourth  evangehst  in  Jn.  21:  24.  Nevertheless  there  are  rea- 
sons, presently  to  be  examined,  for  thinking  that  Irenaeus 
was  not  exclusively  dependent  upon  these  Htcrary  data,  but 
had  a  real  contribution  of  his  own  to  make  to  the  plea  of  his 

1  Ep.  to  Victor,  ap.  Eusebius,  H.  E.  V,  xxiv,  12-17. 


THE  FOURFOLD  GOSPEL  251 

Montanist  allies  in  Ihc  common  warfare  against  Valentinian 
gnosis.  We  have  seen  how  these  were  seeking  to  maintain 
the  claims  of  Asia  and  its  succession  against  the  claims  of 
Rome.  Proclus  could  point  to  the  monument  of  Philip  "the 
apostle"  and  his  four  daughters  at  HierapoHs.  Polycrates  of 
Ephesus,  champion  of  the  Asian  Quartodecimans,  if  he 
could  not  yet  point,  like  Dionysius  of  Alexandria,  to  actual 
"monuments"  of  John  in  Ephesus,  could  at  least  declare 
that  he  "fell  asleep"  there.  Irena^us,  however,  declared 
that  he  could  himself  remember  from  his  boyhood  discourses 
of  Polycarp  in  which  the  old  man  had  related 

"his  intercourse  with  John  and  with  the  others  who  had  seen 
the  Lord,  and  concerning  his  miracles  and  his  teaching,  having 
received  them  from  eyewitnesses  of  the  Word  of  life  (Lk.  1:2; 
I  Jn.  I  :i).  Polycarp  related  all  things  in  harmony  with  the  Scrip- 
tures." ^ 

This  statement  to  the  Valentinian  Florinus  is  introduced 
by  a  reference  to  the  scenes  of  their  common  boyhood  in 
Asia,  and  an  explanation  that, 

"what  boys  learn,  growing  with  their  mind  becomes  joined  to 
it;  so  that  I  am  able  to  describe  the  very  place  in  which  the  blessed 
Polycarp  sat  as  he  discoursed,  and  his  goings  out  and  his  comings 
in,  and  the  manner  of  his  life  and  his  physical  appearance,  and 
his  discourses  to  the  people."  ' 

Irenaeus,  then,  had  one  point  of  definite  individual  knowledge 
of  his  own  recollection.  He  had  been  a  "growing"  boy  at 
the  time  to  which  he  refers;  not  a  "disciple"  of  Polycarp,  nor 
in  "intimate  relations"  with  him,  but  simply  able  to  recall 
through  the  exceptional  freshness  of  boyhood  recollections 
the  external  circumstances  attending  the  teaching  of  "the 
father  of  the  Christians"  ^  of  Asia,  and  the  striking  elements 

1  Ep.  to  Florinus,  ap.  Eusebius,  //.  E.  V,  .xx. 

2  Ibid. 

3  So  called  in  the  Martyrdom,  or  Epistle  of  the  Smyrnccans,  xii,  2. 


252  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

of  "his discourses  to  the  people,''^  namely,  "the  miracles  of  the 
Lord  and  his  teachings"  which  Polycarp  had  heard  from 
eye-witnesses.  This  boyhood  memory  of  Irenaeus  was  of 
itself  a  unique  distinction.  To  say  to  a  Valentinian  gnostic 
like  Florinus  that  Polycarp's  teaching  was  altogether  "in 
harmony  with  the  Scriptures,"  and  that  the  old  man  would 
have  thrown  up  his  hands  in  horror  at  the  kind  of  doctrine 
Florinus  was  now  following  adds  nothing  material;  for  no 
more  personal  intercourse  with  Polycarp  than  the  above  is 
required  by  it.  On  the  contrary,  the  effort  of  Irenaeus  to 
prove  to  Florinus  that  he  can  recall  the  general  outward 
situation  of  Polycarp's  discourses  "to  the  people"  goes  to 
show  his  inability  to  point  in  his  own  case  to  those  closer 
relations  which  he  intimates  that  Florinus,  an  older  lad,  was 
at  the  time  aspiring  to.  But  Irenaeus  counted  himself  a 
providential  Unk  in  the  succession  of  the  apostolic  tradition 
of  the  Church,  because  he  could  remember  the  discourses  of 
Polycarp  "  to  the  people,"  and  the  appearance  of  the  old 
man  as  he  "  sat  and  discoursed,"  and  knew  of  his  own  recol- 
lection that  Polycarp  had  referred  to  "  John  "  and  to  dis- 
courses and  miracles  of  the  Lord  of  which  the  said  "  John  " 
was  an  eye  ( ?)  witness. 

Besides  this  explicit  reference  in  the  Epistle  to  Florinus 
Irenaeus  gave  in  his  work  Against  Heresies  another  equiva- 
lent reference  to  this  relation  of  Polycarp  to  the  apostles  as 
follows : 

"But  Polycarp  also  was  not  only  instructed  by  apostles,  and 
acquainted  with  many  that  had  seen  Christ,  but  was  also  ap- 
pointed by  apostles  in  Asia  bishop  0}  the  church  in  Smyrna.  We 
too  saw  him  in  our  early  youth;  for  he  lived  a  long  time,  and  died 
when  a  very  old  man  a  glorious  and  most  illustrious  martyr's 
death,  having  always  taught  the  things  which  he  had  learned 
from  the  apostles,  which  the  Church  also  hands  down,  and  which 
alone  are  true.    To  these  things  all  the  Asiatic  churches  testify, 


THE  FOURFOLD  GOSPEL  253 

as  do  also  those  who  down  to  the  present  time  have  succeeded 
Polycarp,  who  was  a  much  more  trustworthy  and  certain  witness 
of  the  truth  than  Valentinus  and  Marcion  and  the  rest  of  the 
heretics.  He  also  was  in  Rome  in  the  time  of  Anicetus  and  caused 
many  to  turn  away  from  the  above-mentioned  heretics  to  the 
Church  of  God,  proclaiming  that  he  had  received  from  the  apostles 
this  one  and  only  system  of  truth  which  has  been  transmitted  by 
the  Church."^ 

We  must  not  underestimate  the  extraordinary  capacity  of 
the  age  for  creating  "personal  disciples  of  the  apostles" 
{yvroptfioi  Tc3v  aTToaroXcov) ,  nor  the  special  genius  of  Ircnaeus 
for  discovering  such  in  writers  who  themselves  disclaim  the 
honor.  The  next  centuries  actually  proclaim  Hippolytus, 
IrcncTUs'  own  pupil,  a  yv(6pL/jio<;  rcov  cnroaroXoyv,  and  Ircnaeus 
not  only  dubs  Papias  such  in  virtue  of  his  "traditions  of 
John"  {TrapaBoaei^  tov  'Icodvvov),  but  writes  as  follows  con- 
cerning Clement  of  Rome,  whose  epistle  is  as  remote  from 
the  claim  of  personal  relations  with  the  apostles  as  Polycarp's 
ow^n : 

"In  the  third  place  from  the  apostles  (i.  e.,  after  Linus  and 
Anencletus)  Clement  received  the  episcopate.  He  had  seen  and 
conversed  with  the  blessed  apostles,  and  their  preaching  was  still 
sounding  in  his  ears,  and  their  tradition  was  still  before  his  eyes. 
Nor  was  he  alone  in  this,  for  many  who  had  been  taught  by  the 
apostles  yet  survived."  ^ 

The  palpable  exaggeration  itaHcized  in  the  former  extract 
representing  Polycarp  as  "appointed  by  apostles  in  Asia 
bishop  of  the  church  in  Smyrna,"  for  which  Irena?us  invokes 
the  authority  of  "all  the  churches  of  Asia,"  is  evidence  how 
far  this  manufacture  of  links  of  apostolic  succession  could  be 
carried  in  the  process  of  disputes  wherein  each  party  appealed 
to  "tradition  handed  down  from  the  apostles."     The  fact 

1  Irena.'us,  Haer.  Ill,  iii,  4,  quoted  by  Eusebius,  H.  E.  IV,  xiv,  3. 

2  Haer.  Ill,  iii,  3,  quoted  by  Eusebius,  H.  E.  V,  vi,  2. 


254  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

that  Papias  had  reported  "traditions  of  John"  seems  to  have 
been  enough  in  his  case;  the  fact  that  Clement  had  exhorted 
the  Corinthians  to  set  before  their  eyes  as  "examples  which 
belong  to  our  generation" — i.  e.,  in  contrast  with  Abel, 
Joseph,  Moses,  and  David — "the  good  apostles,"  Peter  and 
Paul  ^  would  seem  to  have  been  sufficient  in  his  case.^  Possi- 
bly Polycarp's  similar  exhortation  to  the  Philippians  to  study 
the  epistles  of  the  "  blessed  and  glorious  Paul"  and  to  "turn 
from  the  false  teachings  ...  to  the  word  which  was 
handed  down  to  us  from  the  beginning,"  coupled  with  his 
appearance  at  Rome  in  defense  of  the  "apostolic"  practice 
of  Asia  in  the  matter  of  the  Fast,  might  alone  account  for  the 
ascription  to  him  of  "apostolicity"  ^  in  the  age  when  one 
must  be  apostoHc  or  nothing.  But  the  circumstantial  state- 
ment of  Irenaeus  so  many  times  repeated  that  he  could  him- 
self remember  Polycarp's  claim  to  "intercourse  with  John 
and  with  the  others  who  had  seen  the  Lord"  does  not  im- 
press the  impartial  critic  as  mere  exaggeration  of  a  recollec- 
tion long  cherished  and  constantly  appealed  to  as  a  source  of 
doctrinal  authority.  Irenaeus  clearly  does  remember  having 
heard  Polycarp  refer  to  "John  and  the  others  who  had  seen 
the  Lord"  as  men  with  whom  he  had  himself  had  intercourse. 
And  for  Irenaeus,  bent  upon  vindicating  the  apostolic  stand- 
ing of  Asia,  and  persuaded  that  Papias  was  a  reporter  not  at 
second,  but  at  first  hand  of  the  "Elders  and  disciples  of  the 
Lord,"  this  was  amply  sufficient  to  cover  the  case  of  Poly- 
carp also.  He,  as  well  as  Papias,  had  reported  "  traditions 
of  John,"  and  for  Irenaeus  there  is  but  one  John.  The  fur- 
ther question  of  the  Where  ?  would  never  occur  to  him.  If, 
however,  we  turn  to  the  Life  of  Polycarp,  probably  written 

^  Ad.  Cor.  V. 

2  Or  did  Irenaeus  also  have  his  eye  upon  Phil.  4:3  ? 

3  In  the  Martyrdom  he  is  in  fact  called  an  "apostolic   teacher"   {Ep. 
Smyrn.  xvi,  2). 


THE  FOURFOLD  GOSPEL  255 

by  Pionius,  at  all  events  compiled  upon  traditions  traceable 
to  a  period  not  long  after  the  martyrdom/  we  lind  it  reported 
that  Polycarp  had  been  brought  as  a  slave  in  his  youth  from 
"the  East"  (/'.  e.,  Palestine;  cj.  Melito)  and  manumitted  in 
Asia.  Moreover,  the  author  of  the  Vita,  though  anxious  to 
endow  the  Smyrniean  succession  with  the  highest  apostolic 
authority,  has  no  thought  whatever  of  any  connection  with 
John.  Paul,  and  only  Paul,  is  the  fountain  head.  Nor  is 
Polycarp  brought  into  direct  contact  even  with  Paul.  His 
immediate  predecessor  in  the  see  is  Boukolos,  between  whom 
and  Strataeas,  the  appointee  of  Paul,  several  others  intervene 
of  names  unknown.  Polycarp,  so  far  from  having  been 
"appointed  by  apostles  bishop  of  the  church  in  Smyrna" 
was  according  to  Pionius  "chosen  by  the  church  and  its 
clergy,  and  installed  in  his  office  by  the  neighboring  bishops." 
This  indigenous  tradition,  so  much  more  modest  than  the 
Ircnaean,  so  much  more  in  accord  with  the  witness  of  the  ear- 
her  literature,  is  followed  by  several  later  writers  in  spite  of 
Irenceus.  A  genuinely  historical  criticism  cannot  but  give  it 
the  preference. 

We  know  at  all  events  from  the  Martyrdom  that  Polycarp 
was  born  in  69  a.  d.  The  references  recalled  by  Irenaeus 
among  his  boyhood  memories  will  have  been,  accordingly, 
references  to  Polycarp's  own  boyhood  in  Syria,  where  Jerusa- 
lem was  then  still  the  seat  of  "Elders  and  witnesses  and 
disciples  of  the  Lord."  These  Jewish  Christians  among 
other  distinctive  practices  will  unquestionably  have  main- 
tained the  observance  of  the  fourteenth  Nisan  as  "the  new 
passover  of  the  Lord";  and  this  may  well  account  for  Ire- 
naeus' assertion.  On  the  other  hand,  the  very  fact  that  Ire- 
naeus habitually  refers  to  Polycarp's  "John"  not  by  him- 

1  Corssen  ("Die  Vita  Polycarpi,"  Zts.f.  ntl.  Wiss.  V,  4,  1904,  pp.  266- 
302)  endeavors  to  prove  this  the  actual  work  of  Pionius.  At  least  it  em- 
ploys Smyrnacan  tradition  independent  of  Irenaeus. 


256  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

self,  but  in  company  with  a  group  of  "disciples  (or  apostles) 
and  Elders"  indicates  that  this  group  is  the  same  to  which 
Papias  refers  as  containing  at  the  time  of  his  inquiries  but 
two  surviving  disciples  or  apostles,  "Aristion  and  the  Elder 
John";  so  that  the  references  themselves  tend  to  show  that 
the  John  in  question  is  the  Elder  of  that  name  in  Jerusalem 
who  presided  until  117  a.  d.  over  the  group  of  "Elders," 
"witnesses"  and  "teachers." 

But  the  GalHc  ally  of  Asian  rights  to  the  exercise  of  the 
prophetic  gift  and  to  the  observance  of  ancient  customs  in- 
herited from  apostoHc  times  was  not  left  to  labor  alone  in  his 
effort  to  strengthen  Asia's  claim  to  apostolic  tradition  by 
weaving  in  the  name  of  "John."  His  claims  do  not  indeed 
seem  to  have  had  the  support  he  alleges  of  "all  the  churches 
of  Asia,"  as  we  have  just  seen;  yet  the  Asian  churches  were 
not  averse  to  aid  even  from  outside  sources.  The  letter  of 
protest  addressed  by  Polycrates  of  Ephesus  and  a  synod  of 
Asian  bishops  to  Victor  and  the  Church  of  Rome  in"i9i-i92 
A.  D.,  follows  the  example  of  Proclus  in  citing  the  great  names 
of  the  Asian  succession  as  then  appealed  to  against  the  pre- 
tensions of  Rome: 

"We  observe  the  exact  day  (of  the  crucifixion);  neither  adding 
nor  taking  away.^  For  in  Asia,  too,  great  lights  have  fallen  asleep, 
which  shall  rise  again  on  the  day  of  the  Lord's  coming,  when  he 
shall  come  with  glory  from  heaven,  and  shall  seek  out  all  the 
saints.  Among  these  are  Philip,  one  of  the  twelve  apostles  [sic], 
who  fell  asleep  in  Hiera polls;  and  his  two  aged  virgin  daughters, 
and  another  daughter  who  lived  in  the  Holy  Spirit  and  now  rests 
at  Ephesus;  and  moreover  John  who  was  'both  a  witness  and  a 
teacher,'  who  reclined  upon  the  bosom  of  the  Lord,  and,  being 
a  priest  wore  the  sacerdotal  plate  (TreVaAov).  He  fell  asleep  at 
Ephesus.  And  Polycarp  in  Smyrna,  who  was  a  bishop  and 
martyr;  and  Thraseas,  bishop  and  martyr  from  Eumenia,  who 

1  As  anti-Quartodecimans  were  obliged  to  do  to  make  the  fast  fall  on 
Good  Friday  and  Easter  on  the  Lord's  day. 


THE  FOURFOLD  GOSPEL  257 

fell  asleep  in  Smyrna.  Why  need  I  mention  the  bishop  and 
martyr  Sagaris,  who  fell  asleep  in  Laodicca,  or  the  blessed  Papi- 
rius,  or  Melito,  the  eunuch  who  lived  altogether  in  the  Holy 
Spirit,  and  who  lies  in  Sardis  awaiting  the  episcopate  from  heaven, 
when  he  shall  rise  from  the  dead?  All  these  observed  the  four- 
teenth day  of  the  passover,  according  to  the  Gospel,  deviating  in 
no  respect,  but  following  the  rule  of  faith.  And  I  also  Polycrates 
the  least  of  you  all,  do  according  to  the  tradition  of  my  relatives, 
some  of  whom  I  have  closely  followed,  for  seven  of  my  relatives 
were  bishops;  and  I  am  the  eighth.  And  my  relatives  always  ob- 
served the  day  when  the  people  (i.  e.,  the  Jews)  put  away  the 
leaven.  I,  therefore,  brethren,  who  have  lived  sixty-five  years  in 
the  Lord,  and  have  met  with  the  brethren  throughout  the  world, 
and  have  gone  through  every  Holy  Scripture  am  not  scared  by 
terrifying  words.  For  those  greater  than  I  have  said  '  We  ought 
to  obey  God  rather  than  man'  (Acts  5:  29)."  ^ 

Here  in  the  last  decade  of  the  second  century  w-e  find  all 
elements  of  the  Johannine  tradition  commingled,  though 
even  now  traceable  to  some  extent  by  their  phraseology  to 
their  Palestinian  or  Asian  sources  as  the  case  may  be.  But 
we  interest  ourselves  first  of  all  in  the  champions  of  Quarto- 
deciman  practice  whom  Polycfates  refers  to  as  of  a  past 
generation,  notably  Melito  of  Sardis,  whose  two  books  on 
The  Passover  written  under  the  proconsulship  of  Sergius 
{var.  Scrvilius)  Paulus  prove  that  at  that  time  (167-168  A.  d.) 
the  subject  was  already  in  debate.  In  fact  the  w-ork  of 
Clement  of  Alexandria  on  the  same  subject  was  expressly 
written  "on  occasion  of"  Melito's,  if  not  in  answer  to  it. 
But  among  the  very  numerous  works  of  this  learned  bishop, 
who  on  occasion  of  a  journey  to  "the  East"  (Palestine) 
made  scholarly  inquiry  into  the  canon  of  the  Old  Testament  ^ 
was  one  whose  title  Eusebius  gives  as  The  Apocalypse  of 

1  Ep.  of  Polycrates  to  Victor  ap.  Eusebius,  H.  E.  V,  xxiv. 

2  See  the  extract  from  Melitos'  preface  to  his  work  called  Extracts  {iKko-yal) 
in  Eusebius,  H.  E.  IV,  xxiv,  12-14. 

Fourth  Gospel — 17 


258  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

John.  It  was  doubtless  called  out  by  the  Montanist  move- 
ment, for  it  had  a  companion  On  Prophecy;  but  we  may  be 
very  sure  that  it  did  not  take  the  radical  course  of  Gaius  or 
of  Dionysius  against  the  millenarian  fanatics,  otherwise  we 
should  have  heard  something  of  it  from  Euscbius,  if  not 
from  his  predecessors  in  opposition  to  the  book.  On  the 
contrary,  Melito,  like  his  predecessors  Papias  and  Justin, 
must  have  maintained  at  least  the  a^ioTricrrov  of  Revelation, 
and  thus  contributed  to  the  behef  in  John's  residence  in  Asia. 
Another  of  the  "great  Hghts"  of  Asia  who  took  part,  it 
would  seem,  in  the  Quartodeciman  controversy  at  Laodicea 
in  164-167  A.  D.,  although  not  mentioned  by  Polycrates,  was 
Claudius  ApolKnaris  (or  ApolHnarios)  of  Hierapolis,  a  city 
in  full  view  across  the  valley  from  Laodicea.  Drummond  ^ 
is  certainly  right  in  resisting  the  attempt  of  some  opponents 
of  the  Johannine  authorship  to  make  out  that  Apollinaris 
was  at  variance  in  this  respect  with  the  rest  of  Asia  and  with 
his  own  predecessors  in  the  see  of  HierapoHs,  where  Poly- 
crates points  to  PhiKp  "one  of  the  twelve  apostles"  as  the 
first  of  his  witnesses  for  Quartodeciman  observance.  The 
whole  tenor  of  ApolUnaris'  denunciation  of  those  who  by 
ignorantly  following  what  they  understand  as  Synoptic  tra- 
dition bring  about  discord  in  the  Church  and  a  practice  in- 
consistent with  the  law  (of  Moses),  impHcs  a  pronouncedly 
Quartodeciman  position,  as  we  should  expect  from  the  occu- 
pant of  his  see.  No  less  characteristic  is  the  second  of  the 
two  extracts  we  possess  from  his  work.  Both,  as  will  be 
seen,  have  a  vital  bearing  upon  the  problem  of  the  Gospels 
and  the  authority  then  attaching  to  them  in  Asia.  Apollinaris 
writes : 

"There  are,  then,  persons  who,  owing  to  ignorance,  are  con- 
tentious about  these  things,  being  affected  in  a  pardonable  way; 

1  Authorship,  etc.,  pp.  508  ff. 


THE  FOURFOLD  GOSPEL  259 

for  ignorance  docs  not  admit  of  blame,  but  requires  instruction. 
And  they  say  that  on  the  fourteenth  the  Lord  ate  the  sheep  with 
the  disciples,  but  himself  suffered  on  the  great  day  of  unleavened 
bread  (Nisan  15),  and  they  pretend  that  Matthew  speaks  in 
accordance  with  their  opinion.  Hence  both  their  opinion  is  in- 
consistent with  the  law  (Ex.  12:14-20),  and  the  Gospels  seem, 
according  to  them,  to  be  at  variance  (Sokci  o-rao-itt^eiv  to.  tvayyi- 
Xux)." 

The  second  extract  will  have  been  from  the  same  context : 

"The  fourteenth  day  is  the  genuine  passover  of  the  Lord,  the 
great  sacrifice;  the  Servant  of  God  instead  of  the  lamb,  he  who 
was  bound  binding  the  strong  man  (Mt.  12:29),  and  he  who  was 
judged  becoming  Judge  of  quick  and  dead;  he  who  was  betrayed 
into  the  hands  of  sinners  to  be  crucified,  who  was  exalted  on  the 
horns  of  the  unicorn  (Ps.  22 :  21);  he  who  had  his  holy  side  pierced, 
he  who  poured  forth  out  of  his  side  the  two  elements  of  (sacra- 
mental) purification,  water  and  blood,  word  and  spirit,  and  was 
buried  on  the  day  of  the  passover,  the  stone  being  laid  upon  the 
tomb."  ^ 

Here  speaks  a  true  Asian  Quartodeciman,  saturated  with 
the  "Johannine"  ideas  of  Christ  as  the  passover  lamb,  in- 
sisting on  the  Johannine  date  for  the  crucifixion,  and  main- 
taining that  those  who  interpret  Matthew  inconsistently  with 
this  are  ignorant  disturbers  of  the  peace  of  the  Church,  guilty 
both  toward  Closes  who  ordained  the  fourteenth  Nisan  as  a 
perpetual  memorial,  and  toward  the  evangchsts,  whom  he 
himself  holds  to  be  in  perfect  accord.  How  Apollinaris  in- 
terpreted Matthew  so  as  to  harmonize  with  John  he  docs  not 
explain,  but  just  as  it  is  possible  to  know  what  he  meant  by 
the  inconsistency  of  western  practice  with  "the  law"  from 
other  Quartodecimans  who  declared  their  opponents  to  incur 
the  curse  of  Moses  upon  transgressors  of  the  law,-  so  it  is 

1  Paschal  Chronicle  ap.  Charteris,  Canonicity,  p.  194. 

2  This  conception  of  the  binding  validity  of  the  Mosaic  ordinance  proba- 
bly explains  Polycrates'  curious  expression  at  the  beginning  of  his  remon- 


26o  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

possible  to  make  at  least  a  very  probable  inference  as  to 
Apollinaris'  exegesis  of  Matthew  from  that  of  the  author  of 
the  Paschal  Chronicle,  who  quotes  him,  maintaining  that: 

"It  is  clear  that  Jesus  did  not  keep  the  passover  on  the  four- 
teenth, but  celebrated  a  typical  {i.  e.,  symbolic)  supper  before  this, 
when  the  sanctlfication  of  the  unleavened  bread  and  the  prepara- 
tion of  the  feast  took  place  {i.  e.,  the  qiddush  of  passover);  for  he 
did  not  give  his  disciples  the  sacrificial  lamb  and  unleavened 
bread,  but  bread  and  a  cup  (i.  e.,  the  elements  of  the  qiddush)."  ^ 

There  is  strong  reason  to  believe  that  the  paschal  chronicler 
is  absolutely  correct  as  to  the  historical  fact  that  it  was  the 
qiddush  of  passover,  and  not  the  passover  supper  itself,  that 
Jesus  ate  with  his  disciples;  though  such  is  of  course  tiot  the 
intention  of  the  Synoptic  evangelists,  who  follow  Mark  in 
recasting  the  older  Petrine  tradition  into  accord  with  Roman 
theory.  For  Roman  theory  identified  the  Lord's  supper 
with  the  passover.^  This  question  of  the  differences  of 
Synoptic  and  Johannine  tradition  must  be  treated  later.  But 
Apollinaris  at  all  events  finds  no  difficulty  in  reconciling 
Matthew  with  John,  though  he  originates  a  phrase  ^  which 
we  have  found  later  current  at  Rome,  and  is  significant  of  an 
awakening  demand  for  harmonization. 

But  another  demand  would  at  first  be  felt  even  more 
urgently  in  a  region  distracted  by  controversy,  where  de- 
cisions turned  always  on  the  c^uestion  of  apostoUc  tradition. 
The  authority  of  PhiHp  the  evangelist,  now  constantly  spoken 

strance  to  Victor:  "We  keep  the  day  dpadioijpyriTov"  which  Drummond 
renders  "not  in  a  reckless  manner."  See  his  references  on  p.  462  to  efforts 
of  Catholics  to  avoid  the  charge  of  departing  from  "the  divine  law." 

1  Paschal  Chronicle,  quoted  by  Drummond,  ibid.,  p.  503.  On  the  qid- 
dush, or  blessing  and  distribution  of  bread  and  wine  on  the  eve  of  the  sab- 
bath and  of  feast-days,  see  Hamburger's  Realencykl  s.  v. 

2  On  this  see  Bacon,  Beginnings  of  Gospel  Story,  1909,  comments  on 
Mk.  14-16,  with  critical  analysis. 

3  5oK£i  aTaaiA^eiv  to,  eiiayyiXia.    See  above,  p.  227. 


THE  FOURFOLD  GOSPEL  261 

of  as  "the  apostle,"  whose  tomb  with  that  of  his  prophesying 
daughters  was  shown  at  HierapoHs,  was  appealed  to  on  both 
sides;  doubtless  with  good  historical  foundation,  since  the 
relations  of  Paul  with  this  family  (Acts  21:8-14)  were  such 
as  naturally  to  bring  them  after  Paul's  death  to  Paul's  princi- 
pal mission  field.  But  what  of  John,  whose  sojourn  in 
Patmos  had  become  a  fixed  element  of  belief  since  Papias 
and  Justin  and  IMelito  had  indorsed  the  trustworthiness  of 
Revelation?  Peter  whose  epistle  from  "Babylon"  had  wide 
circulation  was  bespoken  by  Rome;  James  too  was  known  to 
have  been  martyred  in  Palestine  under  Agrippa  I;  but  what 
of  Andrew,  and  other  apostles?  It  is  Leucius,  or  Leucius 
Charinus,^  a  docetic  gnostic  of  Asia,  who  in  the  midst  of  this 
period  (170-180  a.  d.)  arises  to  meet  the  demand  for  au- 
thentication of  apostolic  tradition  by  his  legendary  Acts  of 
the  various  available  apostles;  and  these  romances  at  once 
exert  their  influence,  not  only  on  docctists,  but  (in  more  or 
less  modified  form)  on  the  orthodox  as  well.  Montanists  and 
anti-Montanists  ahke  resort  to  them.  To  Pacianus,  Leucius 
is  a  great  churchman  of  the  past,  whose  reputation  must  be 
contended  for.    According  to  him 

"the  nobler  class  of  Montanists  who  falsely  claim  to  be  in- 
spired by  Leucius,  boast  of  Proculus  as  their  founder."  - 

The  better  informed  Decree  of  Gelasius,  on  the  other  hand, 
calls  Leucius  a  discipulus  diaboli.  His  recently  recovered 
Ac  Is  of  John,  which  influenced  even  so  great  a  scholar  as 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  forges  the  connecting  link  by  which 
the  Apostle  is  brought  after  the  death  of  the  tyrant  Domitian 
from  his  sojourn  in  Patmos  to  a  final  residence  and  death  in 
Ephesus.  Prodigy  of  course  plays  a  conspicuous  part  in  the 
romance,  the  raising  of  a  man  from  the  dead  being  the  most 

1  In  the  Gospel  of  Nicodemiis  Leucius  and  Charinus  are  separate  indi- 
viduals.   Elsewhere  we  have  "Leucius  Charinus." 

2  Ep.  i,  2.    Migne,  Latin  Fathers,  ,xiii,  1053. 


262  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

prominent  feature.  Of  this  legend  the  echoes  long  continue 
to  resound  on  all  sides.  ApoUonius  of  Ephesus  writing  in 
196-197  A.  D.  against  the  Montanists,  and  "using  testi- 
monies" as  Eusebius  reports  "from  the  Revelation  of  John," 
related 

"that  a  dead  man  had,  through  the  divine  power,  been  raised 
by  John  himself  in  Ephesus."  ^ 

Clement  of  Alexandria  has  the  tale  in  rationalized  form, 
accommodated  to  the  conception  (derived  from  the  Johan- 
nine  Epistles)  of  an  "Elder"  whose  pastoral  visitations  to 
the  churches  confirm  the  good  and  rebuke  the  evil  (cf.  Ill 
Jn.  9-14).  This  story  of  John  and  the  robber  chief,  which 
Clement  calls  "a  myth  which  is  not  a  myth  but  a  true  say- 
ing" (z.  e.,  contains  a  truth),  elaborates  in  edifying  narrative 
the  theme  of  Lk.  15:32,  "This  thy  brother  was  dead  and  is 
ahve  again,  he  was  lost  and  is  found."  Eusebius  culls  it 
from  Clement  to  prefix,  as  we  have  seen,  to  his  chapter  in 
refutation  of  Gains. 

Not  from  Leucius,  on  the  other  hand,  but  probably  of 
Palestinian  origin,  perhaps  as  connected  with  John  the 
Elder,  is  another  tale  too  trifling  for  our  consideration  were 
it  not  seriously  advanced  by  "defenders"  among  the  proofs 
of  John's  residence  in  Asia,  and  because  outside  the  state- 
ments of  Irenaeus  of  his  own  boyhood  recollections  it  is  abso- 
lutely the  only  early  datum  which  connects  Polycarp  in  any 
way  with  "  John."  Irenaeus  himself  relates  it,  not  as  some- 
thing heard  by  himself,  but  on  the  authority  of  "those  who 
had  heard  it  from  Polycarp."     It  maintained  that: 

"John  the  disciple  of  the  Lord,  going  to  bathe  in  Ephesus 
and  seeing  Cerinthus  within,  ran  out  of  the  bathhouse  ^vithout 
bathing,  cr)'ing,  Let  us  flee,  lest  even  the  bath  fall,  because  Cerin- 
thus the  enemy  of  the  truth  is  \\-ithin."  - 

1  Ap.  Eusebius,  H.  E.  Y,  xviii,  13. 

2  Irenaeus,  Haer.  Ill,  iii,  4,  quoted  by  Eusebius,  H.  E.  Ill,  xxviii,  6  and 


THE  FOURFOLD  GOSPEL  263 

This  anecdote  we  find  attached  to  several  other  names  be- 
sides John  and  Cerinthus,  but  it  seems  to  be  connected  first 
with  a  rabbinic  tale  of  the  period  of  strife  between  Church 
and  Synagogue  leaders  in  Palestine  in  the  time  of  John  the 
Elder.  It  is  related  in  rabbinic  literature  of  the  encounter  of 
Rabbi  Jehoshua  ben  Hananiah  (i  10-135  A.  d.)  with  a 
Christian,  who  by  pronouncing  a  spell  makes  the  roof  fall  in 
at  the  baths  of  Tiberias.^ 

When,  therefore,  we  come  at  last  to  the  period  of  Victor 
(189-199)  and  his  endeavor  to  suppress  the  Quartodeciman 
practice  of  the  churches  of  Asia  it  is  not  surprising  to  find 
vehement  declarations  on  the  part  of  Polycrates  and  other 
champions  of  the  ancient  Asian  tradition  maintaining  the 
residence  among  them  not  only  of  Philip  ."one  of  the  twelve 
apostles"  and  his  four  daughters,  from  whom  the  Montanists 
had  derived  their  succession,  but 

"  John  also,  who  was  both  a  witness  and  a  teacher,  who  re- 
clined upon  the  bosom  of  the  Lord,  and  being  a  priest  wore  the 
sacerdotal  plate  (ireTaXov).    He  fell  asleep  at  Ephesus."  ^ 

Here  the  elements  are  mingled.  The  Fourth  Gospel  is  in 
circulation  in  its  canonical  (Roman)  form,  and  Polycrates 
appeals  to  the  Appendix  (Jn.  21:  20-24).  At  the  same  time 
the  expressions  "witness  and  teacher,"  so  singular  in  appli- 
cation to  an  apostle,  and  especially  the  curious  declaration 
that  John  was  a  priest  and  wore  the  ireToXov,  recall  the  tradi- 
tions of  Hegesippus  concerning  the  "witnesses  and  teachers" 

IV,  xiv,  6.  McGiffert  notes  on  the  former  passage:  "  This  same  story  with 
much  more  fullness  of  detail  is  repeated  by  Epiphanius  (Haer.  XXX,  xxiv), 
but  of  Ebion  (a  mythical  heresiarch  of  Palestine)  instead  of  Cerinthus. 
This  shows  that  the  story  was  a  very  common  one,  while  at  the  same  time 
so  vague  in  its  details  as  to  admit  of  an  application  to  any  heretic  who 
suited  the  purpose." 

1  Sec  Herford,  Christianity  in  Talmud  aud  Midrash,  p.  112. 

2  Ep.  of  Polycrates  to  Victor,  ap.  Euscbius,  H.  E.  V,  xxiv,  2. 


264  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

in  Jerusalem  and  the  priestly  accoutrements  and  functions  of 
Jamcs,^  There  is  an  adoption  of  the  Palestinian  traditions 
industriously  collected  by  Papias.  If  any  use  at  all  is  made 
of  Leucian  legend  it  is  limited  to  the  modest  claim  that 
"John  .  .  .  fell  asleep  at  Ephesus."  Of  the  sweeping 
claims  of  Irena^us  of  prolonged  relations  "in  Asia"  between 
Polycarp  and  John,  and  even  that  Poly  carp  had  been  "ap- 
pointed bishop  in  Smyrna  by  John  and  other  apostles"  there 
is  not  a  word.  And  Polycrates  was  65  years  old  at  the  time 
of  writing  (192-195  a.  d.),  and  seven  of  his  relatives  had  been 
bishops  in  Asia.  Had  all  of  them  unfortunately  failed  to 
come  into  relations  with  the  great  apostle  ?  It  is  not  easy  to 
see  why  we  should  have  nothing  but  the  bare  allegation 
(from  Leucius?)  that  John  "sleeps  at  Ephesus,"  not  even 
Polycarp's  alleged  claim  before  Anicetus  to  have  observed  the 
fast  "with  John  the  disciple  of  our  Lord,  and  the  other  apos- 
tles with  whom  he  had  associated."  Even  this  bare  mention 
of  John  at  Ephesus  is  tacked  on  like  an  afterthought  (eVt  Se 
Kol  'lQ}dvvr]<i).  Such  reference  is  not  what  we  should  expect 
if  Polycrates'  idea  of  "John  in  Asia"  was  at  all  like  that 
to  which  Irena^us  gave  final  and  dominant  currency  in  the 
Church. 

Why,  then,  was  the  Asiatic  tradition,  even  in  the  later  and 
exaggerated  form  imparted  to  it  in  the  course  of  controversy 
by  anti-Montanists  and  Quartodecimans,  displaced  in  the 
catholic  Church  by  that  of  Irenasus  in  far-off  Lyons?  Not 
merely  because  the  Ireneean  conception  by  transferring  from 
Palestine  to  Asia  the  whole  group  of  apostles  and  "Elders, 
disciples,  teachers  and  witnesses  of  the  Lord,"  rescued  to  the 
Church  that  continuity  of  apostolic  tradition  which  was  its 
most  valued  possession,  and  which  seemed  to  have  been 
utterly  abolished  when  the  war  of  Bar-Cocheba  and  the  sub- 
sequent edict  of  Hadrian  dispersed  forever  the  native  Pales- 

1  See  also,  however,  Acts  4:  6. 


THE  FOURFOLD  GOSPEL  265 

tinian  church  of  Jerusalem.  This  was  indeed  a  motive  of 
tremendous  cogency  in  favor  of  indorsing  the  larger  claims  of 
Irena:us;  but  it  was  not  all.  The  symj^athies  of  the  Church 
catholic  must  inevitably  be  with  the  great  champion  of 
catholicity  in  the  struggles  of  the  age  to  secure  uniformity  of 
faith  and  practice. 

The  two  things  Irenaeus  cannot  tolerate  are  (i)  a  heretical 
Gnostic,  (2)  an  intolerant  churchman.  Irenaeus  and  his 
GalHcan  suj^porters  are  not  Montanists;  but  they  intervene 
with  all  their  might  when  Eleutherus  is  soHcited  to  join  part 
of  the  bishops  of  Asia  in  "repelling  from  the  Church  the  gift 
of  prophecy."  Ircmcus  himself  is  not  a  Quartodeciman.  He 
treats  the  cantankerous  Blastus  as  a  disturber  of  the  peace 
and  author  of  "schism."  He  explains  the  difiference  of  usage 
between  East  and  West  to  Victor  on  the  ground  that  "it  is 
likely  that  (the  forefathers)  did  not  hold  to  strict  accuracy, 
and  thus  formed  a  custom  for  their  posterity  according  to 
their  own  simplicity  and  peculiar  mode."  His  method  of 
reconciling  the  Gospels  (by  a  pubhc  ministry  extending  over 
twenty  years!  ^)  would  have  made  Apollinaris  stare  as  well 
as  the  anti-Quartodecimans.  But  Ircnasus  intervenes  again 
from  Gaul  on  behalf  of  the  rights  of  Asia  to  "observe  the 
tradition  of  an  ancient  custom"  against  the  rash  intolerance 
of  the  bigot  Victor.  And  he  necessarily  carried  with  him  the 
consensus  of  the  growing  catholic  Church. 

And  there  was  something  more.  Irenaeus'  intolerance  of 
intolerance  was  only  another  aspect  of  his  intolerance  of 
Gnosticism.  Proclus,  whom  a  Gaius  would  have  cast  out  of 
the  Church  together  with  the  whole  body  of  his  x^sian  "new 
scriptures,"  was  Irena.'us'  trusty  ally  against  a  real  foe 
far  more  to  be  feared  than  Montanistic  millenarianism — the 
dreaded  Valentinian  Gnostics.  In  this  too  the  common  sense 
of  the  infant  catholic  Church  could  not  fail  to  side  with 

1  JIaer.,  II  xxii,  5. 


266  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Irenasus,  the  "man  of  peace."  Only  by  a  conciliator}'  spirit 
toward  those  within  could  the  Church  at  large  present  a 
united  front  against  the  real  "Heresies."  And  for  this  union 
the  absolutely  indispensable  prerequisite  was  adoption  of 
"the  fourfold  Gospel." 

Since  Justin's  time  the  Antiochian  gospel  of  Luke  had  ob- 
tained a  place,  at  least  in  Roman  circles,  alongside  the 
ancient  Roman  (Mark),  and  the  south-S}Tian  (]SIatthew). 
It  was  not  for  one  moment  imaginable  that  Asia  could  work 
in  harmony  with  the  West  if  its  "  Johannine"  canon  were  to 
be  treated  as  the  Alogi  and  Gaius  (or  Gaius  and  the  Alogi) 
proposed.  Since  the  time  of  Tatian  and  Theophilus  of 
Antioch  the  inevitable  course  of  real  progress  had  been 
marked  so  plainly  that  the  bigotry  of  Gaius  and  his  party 
was  fortunately  foredoomed  from  the  start.  Harmonization 
is  the  watchword  of  the  times.  Leave  to  Gnostics  hke 
Marcion,  or  Basilides,  their  narrow  Hmitations  of  evangelic 
truth,  or  their  still  more  daring  impositions  of  self-made 
"gospels"  is  Ircnaeus'  plea.  For  the  Church  there  can  be  but 
one  pillar  and  ground  of  all  evangehc  faith,  a  fourfold  Gospel; 
because  a  fourfold  gospel  was  in  truth,  and  not  merely  in  the 
fanciful  imagery  and  symboHsm  of  Irenaeus,  representative 
of  "the  four  quarters  of  the  inhabited  earth." 

As  scholar  Irenaeus  is  open  to  the  most  serious  charges  of 
blundering,  exaggeration,  plagiarism,  misrepresentation.  His 
most  ardent  supporters  are  prompt  to  admit  that  he  grossly 
misrepresents  the  doctrines  of  Valentinus.  Eusebius  abund- 
antly proved  his  flagrant  exaggerations  in  regard  to  the  rela- 
tions of  Papias  to  "John."  His  report  that  Jesus  attained 
the  age  of  the  "presbyter"  (40-50  years)  attributed  to  "aU 
the  Elders  who  in  Asia  conferred  with  John  the  Lord's  disci- 
ple" is  admittedly  based  upon  Papias'  book.  In  the  same 
connection  he  declares  that 

"some  of  them  saw  not  only  John  (as  had  Polycarp  in  Irenaeus' 


THE  FOURFOLD  GOSPEL  267 

idea),  but  others  also  of  the  apostles,  and  had  this  same  account 
from  them,  and  witness  (testantur)  to  the  aforesaid  account."  ^ 

The  (present)  witness  of  the  Elders  can  only  be  on  the 
pages  of  Papias,  who  thus  appears  as  even  more  intimately 
associated  with  "the  apostles"  than  Polycarp,  With  the 
original  passage  before  us,  as  Eusebius  has  kindly  furnished 
it  for  the  purpose,  we  can  easily  see  that  this  pretension  is 
utterly  groundless.  A  Gutjahr  can  indorse  it  even  in  modern 
times,  which  shows  how  older  Catholics  could  do  the  same;  ^ 
but  Professor  Stanton  has  the  candor  to  acknowledge  that 

"  It  is  not  by  any  means  clear  that  he  (the  John  whom  Papias 
heard)  even  resided  in  Asia."  ^ 

We  have  ourselves  seen  reason  for  the  decided  conviction 
that  Irenaeus'  whole  notion  of  an  apostolic  group  about  John 
in  Asia  rests  on  nothing  more  than  the  older  assertions  of  his 
sojourn  in  Patmos,  Polycarp's  references  to  intercourse  in 
boyhood  with  "John"  and  others  who  had  seen  the  Lord, 
and  his  own  misinterpretation  of  Papias.  As  historian  and 
scholar  Irenaeus  was  not  a  trustworthy  leader,  although  far 
saner  than  Leucius  and  his  Montanistic  and  Docetic  ad- 
herents. But  it  was  not  as  scholar  and  historian  that  the 
Church  followed  him.  It  followed  him — and  wisely — rather 
than  a  \'ictor,  or  a  Gaius,  because  he  was  a  truly  catholic  ec- 
clesiastic and  statesman,  "well  named  the  man  of  peace." 
We,  too,  while  in  the  field  of  scholarship  and  history  we  re- 
verse his  ill-founded  assertions,  commend  his  spirit,  and  re- 
joice that  it  preserved  to  us  the  last  and  in  some  respects  the 
greatest  of  the  Gospels,  even  if  under  the  aegis  of  a  borrowed 
name. 

1  Haer.  II,  xxii,  5. 

2  I  am  unable  to  discover  anything  of  value  to  add  to  the  arguments  of 
Zahn  and  Gutjahr  in  the  recent  treatise  of  F.  G.  Lewis,  The  Irenceus  Tes- 
timony to  the  Fourth  Gospel,  Chicago  University  Press,  1908. 

3  Gospels,  etc.,  p.  168. 


268  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Careful  scrutiny  of  the  direct  internal  evidence  on  the  au- 
thorship of  the  Fourth  Gospel  leads  to  the  same  result  as 
the  external.  In  fact,  as  we  have  already  seen,  the  external 
evidence  is  not  independent,  and  in  its  assertions  of  Johan- 
nine  authorship  betrays  the  fact  that  it  is  a  mere  echo  by  its 
character,  its  date,  its  limitations,  and  its  phraseology.  The 
assertions  of  Ircna,^us  and  his  contemporary  supporters  of 
the  fourfold  gospel  simply  reverberate  with  natural  enlarge- 
ments those  which  had  previously  been  embodied  by  redac- 
tors and  revisers  in  the  substance  of  the  instrumentum  Jo- 
hanneum. 

To  a  certain  extent  the  surviving  literature  of  the  second 
century  enables  us  to  follow  the  process.  Much  earlier  and 
more  positively  than  for  the  Gospel  the  claim  of  apostolicity 
under  the  name  of  "John"  is  put  forth  on  behalf  of  Reve- 
lation. Scrutiny  of  the  structure  of  this  book  reveals,  how- 
ever, an  unmistakably  composite  origin.  Only  the  outer 
framework,  the  prologue  of  the  seven  epistles  and  the  epi- 
logue with  its  claim  to  canonical  authority,  belong  to  Asia 
and  "the  end  of  the  reign  of  Domitian,"  and  it  is  only  in 
these  that  the  claim  appears.  The  substance  of  the  "proph- 
ecy" is  imported  from  Palestine,  and  conspicuously  fails  to 
bear  out  the  assertions  of  the  Ephesian  redactor.  Such  traces 
as  remain  of  conflict  in  Asia,  at  first  against  those  who  "de- 
nied the  resurrection  and  the  judgment,"  later  conversely 
against  the  Montanistic  millinarian  prophets,  indicate  that 
the  field  on  which  the  Revelation  of  John  attained  its  first 
general  acceptance  was  Asia. 

The  claim  of  apostoHcity  for  the  Gospel  was  put  forth 
later;  at  Rome,  as  we  have  seen  reason  to  beheve.  At  all 
events  Rome  was  the  scene  of  subsequent  dispute,  and  this 
involved  the  entire  instrumentum  Johanneum.  The  sub- 
stance of  the  Gospel  (chapters  1-20)  which  had  long  en- 
joyed a  limited  circulation  in  x'Vsia,  though  as  yet  without 


THE  FOURFOLD  GOSPEL  269 

pretensions  to  aposlolicity,  was  first  supplied  with  a  frame- 
work adapted  to  Asiatic  conditions  in  the  form  of  the  three 
Epistles,  the  hint  perhaps  being  taken  from  Revelation.  In 
this  framework  claims  to  apostolic  authority  arc  still  limited 
to  the  historic  tradition  of  the  Church.  The  author  does 
not  personate  "John,"  hke  the  redactor  of  Revelation;  he 
merely  uses  the  "corporation  we."  But  the  claim  is  made 
more  concrete  in  the  second  revision  and  supplement  with 
which  we  find  the  Gospel  suppUed  in  its  canonical  or  Roman 
form.  Even  here  it  still  clings  to  the  refuge  of  ambiguity. 
Only  with  the  polemic  of  the  Alogi  docs  the  counter  asser- 
tion at  last  appear  full  Hedged  and  bold,  to  dominate  hence- 
forth wherever  the  fourfold  gospel  is  received. 

This  review  of  actual  conditions  in  the  second  century 
should  suflicc  to  meet  the  demand  of  Drummond  ^  that  it 
be  explained  how  a  book  published  far  away  from  the  circle 
of  John's  immediate  disciples  came  to  be  ascribed  to  him. 
Such  a  book  is  Revelation,  whose  history  prefigures  that  of 
the  Gospel.  Its  Asian  framework  shows  how  the  name  of 
an  apostle  and  martyr  of  Palestine  could  become  attached 
a  generation  later  to  the  Ephesian  edition  of  a  Palestinian 
"  prophecy."  The  ascription  at  Rome  in  160-180  a.  d.  of  an 
anonymous  gospel,  known  to  have  been  long  in  circulation 
in  Asia  to  an  author  by  this  time  generally  admitted,  for 
the  reasons  stated,  to  have  sojourned  in  Asia  in  the  end  of 
the  reign  of  Domitian,  is  not  more  difficult  of  explanation. 
If  the  indirect  internal  evidence  does  not  support  the  claim 
of  Johannine  authorship,  which  was  not  found  to  be  really 
supported  by  the  external,  certainly  the  mere  claims  of  ed- 
itors and  writers  of  e[)ilogucs  and  epistles  of  commendation 
cannot  do  so.  They  fall  far  short  of  offsetting  the  silence  of 
the  earliest  times. 

^Char.  and  Authorship,  p.  349. 


PART  III 
THE  INDIRECT  INTERNAL  EVIDENCE 


PART  III 

THF  INDIRECT  INTERNAL  EVIDENCE 

CHAPTER  XI 

THE   evangelist's   TASK 

If  thirty  years  have  witnessed  a  great  change  in  critical 
treatment  of  the  external  evidence  relating  to  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  a  still  greater  change  is  manifest  in  respect  to  the 
internal.  The  progress,  however,  has  not  been  upon  the  side 
of  the  "defenders,"  and  therefore  we  need  feel  no  surprise  if 
Principal  Drummond  out  of  his  volume  of  513  pages  de- 
votes but  32  to  "the  Internal  Evidence  in  Favour  of  the 
Traditional  View,"  referring  the  reader  to  Bishop  Westcott's 
Introduction  to  the  Four  Gospels  (1862),  Sanday's  Authorship 
0}  the  Fourth  Gospel  (1872),  and  Lightfoot's  articles  in  the 
Expositor  (Series  IV,  1890).^  This  meager  treatment  of 
that  aspect  of  the  question  which  to  some  of  the  greatest 
writers  on  both  sides  has  seemed  the  more  important  of  the 
two,  is  explained  by  the  statement 

"  The  internal  evidence  of  the  authorship  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 
has  been  examined  with  such  care  and  completeness,  especially 
by  English  writers,  that  I  cannot  hope  to  contribute  any  fresh 
material  to  the  subject."  ^ 

For  the  fresh  material  we  must  indeed  look  elsewhere;  for 
Drummond's  "rapid  survey  and  judgment  of  the  several 
lines  of  argument"  is,  as  he  forewarns  us,  a  mere  recapitula- 

1  Reprinted  in  Bibl.  Essays,  1893,  pp.  1-44. 

2  Char,  and  Auth.,  p.  352. 

Fourth  Gospel — 18  273 


274  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

tion  of  the  stereotyped  apologetic  of  thirty  years  ago:  First, 
the  author  was  a  Jew;  second,  he  knows  the  topography  of 
Palestine;  third,  he  speaks  like  an  eye-witness.  A  few  "evi- 
dences" of  this  type  culled  by  earlier  apologists  which  have 
particularly  impressed  Principal  Drummond  take  the  place 
of  any  comprehensive  survey  of  the  Gospel  in  its  general 
structure,  dominant  ideas,  and  adaptation  to  existent  condi- 
tions. As  none  disputes  the  Jewish  birth  of  the  evangehst, 
which  of  itself  would  imply  more  or  less  knowledge  of  Jewish 
literature  and  the  Holy  Land;  as,  moreover,  individual  traits 
evincing  the  accuracy  of  an  eye-witness  could  not  prove  more 
than  the  use  of  good  authority  for  the  particular  item  in 
question  unless  shown  to  characterize  the  Gospel  as  a  whole, 
the  field,  thus  cultivated,  offers  little  indeed  to  mere  gleaners 
after  Wcstcott,  Sanday,  Lightfoot,  Andrew  P.  Peabody,^  and 
Zahn.^ 

Professor  Sanday  himself,  although  naturally  devoting 
much  the  greater  part  of  his  recent  volume  ^  to  the  indirect 
internal  evidence,  hardly  departs  from  the  mode  of  treatment 
which  since  he  himself  formulated  it  more  than  thirty  years 
ago  has  become  stereotyped  for  "defenders."  Only  in  the 
year  following  the  appearance  of  his  Criticism  was  this 
"atomistic"  method,  as  Wrcde  has  aptly  characterized  the 
process,  been  transcended  by  an  English  scholar,  whose  in- 
terpretation of  the  Gospel  against  the  background  of  its 
known  historical  environment  is  worthy  of  the  highest  praise. 

Mr.  Ernest  F.  Scott  in  his  volume  entitled  The  Fourth 
Gospel,  its  Purpose  and  Theology  (1906)  marks  an  epoch,  at 
least  for  English  readers,  in  the  progress  of  true  appreciation 
of  the  Gospel.    At  last  an  EngUsh  scholar  treats  it  for  what 

1  Essay  in  The  Fourth  Gospel.  Evidences  external  and  internal  of  its 
Johannine  Authorship,  Scribner's  Sons,  1891. 

2  Introduction  to  New  Testament,  Engl,  transl.,  1909. 

3  Criticism,  etc.,  1905. 


THE  EVANGELIST'S  TASK  275 

it  was  to  its  own  generation,  and  therefore  may  be  to  every 
generation  that  approaches  it  through  its  own.  The  un- 
productive quest  of  the  mere  polemic  or  apologist,  traversing 
the  X  literature  only  to  pick  up  a  phrase  here,  an  expression 
there  as  evidence  in  the  pros  and  cons  of  critical  debate  is  at 
last  abandoned.  It  gives  way  to  a  comprehensive  survey  of 
the  Gospel  as  a  whole.  Mr.  Scott  places  himself  in  the  ad- 
mitted situation,  Ephesus,  in  "the  first  or  second  decade  of 
the  second  century,"  and  gives  us  a  historical  interpretation. 
On  the  moot  points  of  debate  he  makes  neither  affirmation 
nor  denial,  though  in  the  Preface  his  own  position  is  frankly 
stated  as  "that  which  is  now  generally  accepted  by  Conti- 
nental scholars,"  as  against  that  of  Stanton,  Sanday,  and 
Drummond.  What  j\Ir.  Scott  has  endeavored  to  give  is 
simply  "the  real  message  of  John";  and  he  is  justly 

"convinced  that  the  Gospel  has  nothing  to  lose  by  a  fearless 
analysis  of  its  teaching  in  the  light  of  what  appears  the  more 
probable  theory  of  its  origin." 

It  is  indeed  not  the  Gospel  but  the  Church  which  loses,  and 
that  heavily,  for  lack  of  such  light.  Yet  the  reader  will 
wonder  only  that  so  much  can  already  be  accomplished 
toward  the  illumination  of  these  dark  origins,  when  the  Gospel 
is  simply  permitted  to  sj)cak  for  itself  apart  both  from  ancient 
efforts  to  obtain  for  it  an  apostolic  authority  to  which  in  its 
integral  elements  it  makes  no  pretension,  and  from  modern 
attempts  to  bolster  up  the  ancient  claim. 

Studied  by  this  historical  and  sympathetic  method,  free 
from  the  distractions  of  polemic  interest,  the  Gospel  proper, 
separate  from  its  advertising  Appendix,  exhibits  character- 
istics so  broad  and  unmistakable  as  to  have  impressed  them- 
selves upon  even  the  earUest  observers.  Next  to  the  evangel- 
ist's own,  perhaps  the  best  of  all  characterizations  of  the 
Gospel  comes  to  us  from  the  period  of  original  opposition  to 


276  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

its  reception  to  canonical  standing.  It  is  found  in  the  well- 
known  passage  quoted  by  Eusebius  from  the  lost  Hypoly- 
poses  of  Clement  of  Alexandria.  Clement  reported  it  as  a 
"tradition  derived  from  the  early  presbyters"  as  follows: 

"  Last  of  all  John,  perceiving  that  the  bodily  (or  external)  facts 
had  been  set  forth  in  the  (other)  Gospels,  at  the  instance  of  his 
disciples  and  with  the  inspiration  of  the  Spirit  composed  a  spir- 
itual (TTvevfxaTLKov)  Gospel."  ^ 

Without  attempting  to  separate  tradition  from  inference 
in  the  passage.  Professor  Sanday  enumerates  five  data  as 
present  in  it,  remarking  that  it  "alone  has  all  the  essential 
points"  of  primitive  belief  regarding  the  Gospel: 

"  I.  The  Gospel  is  the  work  of  St.  John.     .     .     . 

"2.  It  was  written  towards  the  end  of  his  life. 

"3.  The  three  Gospels  were  in  the  hands  of  the  Apostle,  and 
he  had  read  and  up  to  a  certain  point  approved  of  them. 

"4.  What  he  himself  undertook  to  write  was  a  Gospel,  not  a 
biography;  the  difference  is  important. 

"5.  In  contrast  with  the  other  Gospels  it  was  recognized  as 
being  in  a  special  sense  'a  spiritual  Gospel.'  "  ^ 

Of  these  the  first  four  may  be  dismissed.  Comparison 
with  the  Muratorlanmn  and  the  early  Prologues  shows  at 
once  the  derivation  of  the  statement  (i)  that  "John"  wrote 
the  Gospel  "at  the  instance  of  his  disciples  and  with  the  in- 
spiration of  the  Spirit."  It  merely  echoes  the  Appendix 
(Jn.  21 :  24),  whose  data  we  have  already  seen  to  be  drawn 
by  inference  from  the  work  edited.  (2)  The  late  date  of  the 
Gospel  was  probably  not  mere  inference  from  its  employ- 
ment of  the  other  three.  The  time  could  still  be  remembered 
when  the  Johannine  writings  were  "new  scriptures"  as  com- 
pared with  the  Pauline  Epistles  and  Synoptic  Gospels.  On 
this  there  is  no  dispute.  However,  there  was  certainly  no 
difficulty  in  perceiving  on  even  the  most  superficial  inspec- 

1 H.  E.,  VI,  xiv,  7.  2  Criticism,  p.  69. 


THE  EVANGELIST'S  TASK  277 

tion,  that  (3)  the  fourth  evangelist  "had  read,  and  up  to  a 
certain  point  aj)i)roved  of"  the  Synoptic  Gospels.  This  too 
argues  no  authority  outside  the  text  itself.  (4)  As  regards 
Professor  Sanday's  fourth  datum  we  mean  no  disparagement 
either  of  its  validity  or  its  importance,  in  expressing  grave 
doubts  whether  either  Clement  or  the  "early  presbyters"  had 
any  such  distinction  in  mind  as  that  between  "a  gospel  and 
a  biography,"  or  desired  to  make  any  such  assertion  as 
Professor  Sand  ay  discovers.  This  leaves  of  the  five  points 
of  primitive  behef  derivable  from  Clement's  authorities  the 
single  one  which  constitutes  the  real  aim  of  the  passage,  and 
of  all  the  five  is  most  easily  accounted  for  by  simple  inspec- 
tion of  the  Gospel  itself.  It  was  (5)  intended  to  supplement 
the  other  three  as  a  "spiritual"  gospel.  The  technical  term 
by  which  this  most  obviously  distinctive  feature  of  the  Gospel 
is  expressed  is  probably  coined  by  Clement  himself;  or  rather 
Clement  employs  for  it  the  current  term  of  Alexandrian 
exegesis.    The  observation  could  be  made  by  anybody. 

Employed  as  Clement  employs  it  the  term  "spiritual"  can 
only  mean  "exhibiting  a  higher  or  symbolic  sense."  As 
Philo  had  distinguished  the  bodily  or  external  sense  of  the 
Old  Testament  narratives  from  the  higher  or  "spiritual" 
sense  to  be  drawn  from  them  by  allegorical  interpretation 
without  disparagement  or  rejection  of  the  literal,  so  the 
fourth  evangelist,  Clement  would  say,  aimed  to  present  what 
would  convey  the  loftier  (more  philosophical)  truths  of  the 
faith.  Of  course  he  does  not  mean  to  suggest  that  the  inci- 
dents related  are  allegories  invented  to  convey  the  evangel- 
ist's theological  beliefs.  Modern  exponents  of  the  theory  of 
allegory  as  the  key  to  the  evangelist's  plan,  such  as  Thoma 
on  the  radical  side  or  Drummond  on  the  conservative,  fail  to 
do  justice  to  a  distinction  self-evident  to  ancient  rabbi  or 
Christian  expounder  of  the  true  gnosis  such  as  (Element. 
Such  critics  pay  also  too  little  attention  to  the  evangelist's 


278  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

own  insistent  emphasis  on  the  importance  of  the  historical 
reality  of  the  incarnation.  What  Clement  means  is  that  in 
the  Fourth  Gospel  as  compared  with  the  other  three  the 
selection  of  incidents  is  made,  and  the  mode  and  detail  of 
narration  is  determined,  with  principal  reference  to  the 
"higher"  (f.  ^.,  theological)  truths  which  the  evangelist  thinks 
it  imperative  to  bring  out.  The  observation  is  just;  but  the 
distinction  between  "bringing  out"  and  "putting  in"  is  also 
vital.  The  evangelist  is  no  more  conscious  of  composing 
"fictions,"  whether  in  his  seven  wonders  or  in  his  seven  I 
am's  of  Christ,  than  is  Paul  in  the  "allegory"  he  educes  from 
the  story  of  Hagar  and  Ishmael.  Both  words  and  deeds  of 
Jesus  are  for  him  sacred.  But  for  that  very  reason  they 
allow — nay  they  demand — to  his  mind,  just  such  expository 
treatment  as  the  Jewish  synagogue  preacher  ^  accords  to  the 
teachings  and  the  wonders  of  the  Old  Testament  in  his 
midrash,  or  haggadic  interpretation.  He  would  resent  the 
idea  that  he  puts  in  the  smallest  iota;  but  inabihty  to  bring 
out  the  entire  system  of  theological  truth  as  he  conceives  it 
would  mark  only  his  own  incapacity.  Its  presence  there  is  to 
him  axiomatic. 

One  must  read  the  epistles  of  Clement  of  Rome  and 
Barnabas,  or  the  exegesis  of  Justin  Martyr  to  obtain  a 
realizing  sense  of  the  incredible  license  of  this  process  of 
"bringing  out"  which  was  the  approved  method  of  edifica- 
tion whether  for  the  Jewish  or  Christian  teacher  of  the  early 
second  century.  If  even  "external"  evangeUsts  felt  at  liberty 
to  agglutinate  the  sayings  of  Jesus  into  extended  discourses 
of  a  doctrinal  bearing,  and  to  compose  allegorical  parables 
such  as  the  Sheep  and  Goats  (Mt.  25 :3i-36)  or  the  Usurping 
Husbandmen  (Mk.  12:1-12),  we  cannot  wonder  that  a 
"spiritual"  evangelist  should  employ  the  time -honored  form 

1  The  Darshan,  i.  e.,  "treader  out";  substantive  form  of  the  same  Hebrew 
root  as  Midrash.    Cf.  I  Cor.  9:  9. 


THE   EVANGELIST'S  TASK  279 

of  dialogue,  chosen  vehicle  since  Plato's  lime  for  the  con- 
veyance of  the  deeper  truths  of  philosophy  and  religion,  to 
elaborate  the  sense  of  the  mystical  and  oracular  sayings  in 
his  time  understood  to  be  characteristic  of  Jesus.  As  to  in- 
cident, ISIark's  story  of  the  Cursing  of  the  Fig  Tree  is  not  the 
only  instance,  even  in  the  Synoptics,  of  parable  recast  in 
pragmatic  form,  nor  of  the  symboUc  application  of  wonder- 
stories.  We  have  in  fact  the  fourth  evangeUst's  own  word 
for  it  that  the  supply  of  wonder-stories  was  superabundant, 
and  that  the  signs  "written  in  this  book"  are  the  merest 
fraction  of  the  mass  from  which  his  selections  were  made 
(Jn.  20:30,  31).  We  need  only  note  what  was  the  principle  of 
selection  to  realize  something  of  the  freedom  a  "spiritual" 
evangelist  would  feel  both  in  selection  and  in  treatment  of 
such  material.  If  of  the  many  "signs"  which  Jesus  did  only 
seven  were  given,  and  these  were  made  illustrative,  the 
presentment  would  have  to  take  a  typical  or  representative 
form.  The  third  generation  after  Jesus'  ministry  had  not  the 
means,  even  if  it  had  conceived  the  idea,  to  relate  Jesus' 
"mighty  works"  with  historical  regard  for  the  detail  ol  in- 
dividual cases.  Our  author's  seven  "signs"  were  written 
that  his  readers  might  have  life,  by  believing  in  Jesus'  name. 
What  he  means  by  the  terms  "life"  and  "belief"  will  be- 
come clearer  as  we  examine  the  formative  element  of  his 
construction.  The  material  element  consists  on  his  own 
showing  of  selected  traditions  of  the  Lord,  a  part  of  which 
seems  to  have  come  from  sources  other  than  the  Synoptics, 
and  probably  oral.  There  were  in  fact  two  cogent  reasons 
for  transcending  Synoptic  hmits:  first,  the  intense  craving  of 
the  age  which  Pai)ias  attests;  ^  second,  the  far  greater  plas- 
ticity of  materials  not  protected  by  the  quasi-canonical  posi- 
tion accorded  to  Matthew  and  Mark,  if  not  to  Luke  also.  If 
then  "John"  surprises  us  by  the  degree  to  which  he  has 

1  Ov  yap  Tots  tA  iroXXd  X^7oucrtj'  ex'^'po'',  '^"'■"'ep  ol  ttoWoI. 


28o  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

used  the  liberty  of  a  "spiritual"  evangelist  to  adapt  the 
material  which  he  takes  from  the  three, ^  we  may  be  sure  he 
has  used  it  to  much  greater  extent  in  framing  to  his  purpose 
of  edifying  symbolism  what  he  borrows  from  the  mass  of 
current  oral  tradition.  As  we  shall  see,  the  modifications 
made  in  material  adapted  from  Synoptic  sources  are  sweep- 
ing. In  many  cases  it  is  difficult  to  say  whether  the  evangelist 
is  borrowing  at  first  hand,  or  whether  some  allegorizing 
preacher  such  as  he  who  caricatures  the  Transfiguration  and 
Resurrection  stories  in  the  Acts  of  John  (though  surely  one 
of  better  taste  and  more  orthodox  purpose)  has  preceded 
him.  At  all  events  both  the  dramatis  personae  and  the  inci- 
dents seem  ultimately  derived  for  the  most  part  from  Synoptic 
material,  even  where  the  resultant  composite  reveals  its 
origin  only  in  mismated  parts.  What  was  required  of  the 
seven  selected  "signs"  was  that  they  should  furnish  com- 
plete illustrations  of  how  the  incarnate  Logos  had  "mani- 
fested his  glory."  If,  then,  a  Luke  can  borrow  the  traits  of 
Mark's  anointing  in  Bethany  to  embelhsh  his  own  preferred 
story  of  the  Penitent  Harlot  (Lk.  7  :36-5o),  we  should  not 
expect  a  "John"  to  refrain  from  combining  traits  from  vari- 
ous sources  to  set  forth  a  typical  healing,  or  from  framing 
composites  to  bring  out  the  "spiritual"  significance  of  his 
seven  "manifestations." 

There  is  an  element  of  truth,  accordingly,  in  the  representa- 
tion of  some  of  the  early  fathers  that  the  fourth  evangelist 
aimed  to  "supplement"  the  three,  as  well  as  to  "correct" 
them.  It  is  unquestionably  true  that  he  aimed  to  present  a 
"spiritual"  gospel;  and  the  undertaking  involved  not  only 
the  free  handling  of  Synoptic  material,  but  resort  upon  occa- 
sion to  the  still  flowing  though  turbid  stream  of  oral  tradi- 
tion. The  names  "Nathanael"  and  "Cana  of  Gahlee"  and 
the   expHcit   reference   to   the   many   current   narratives  of 

1  On  this  point  see  below,  p.  287,  and  Chapter  XIV. 


THE  EVANGELIST'S  TASK  281 

miracle  arc  not  easily  explained  without  admission  of  a  real 
clement  of  more  or  less  authentic  report.  We  must  beware, 
however,  of  exaggerating  this  element.  Study  of  the  actual 
construction  of  the  narrative,  its  predominant  note  of  sym- 
boHsm,  and  its  relation  to  the  Synoptic  tradition,  warn  us  to 
expect  but  small  addition  to  our  meager  stock  of  historical 
evangeHc  tradition.  More  influence  would  seem  to  have 
been  exerted  by  midrashic  handling  through  a  succession  of 
teachers  of  the  Petrine  story  familiar  to  us  in  its  Markan 
embodiment. 

At  this  point,  however,  we  are  brought  to  a  consideration 
of  the  formative  principle  of  the  Gospel,  as  defmcd  in  the 
author's  own  statement  of  his  purpose: 

"  These  are  written  that  ye  might  believe  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ, 
and  that  by  believing  ye  might  have  life  through  his  name." 

The  design  of  the  evangehst  is  so  to  present  his  typical 
selections  from  the  tradition  of  Jesus'  words  and  deeds  that 
they  may  result  in  the  reader's  obtaining  lijc  through  jaith. 
Here  in  a  nutshell  is  the  best  characterization  of  the  Gospel 
that  could  be  framed,  and  the  emphasis  lies  upon  the  forma- 
tive principle.  ]Many  had  taken  in  hand  to  write  the  story; 
but  our  evangelist's  distinction  is  his  preeminent  determina- 
tion to  make  it  subsidiary  to  lijc  through  Jaith. 

For  reasons  almost  certainly  connected  with  Gnostic 
abuse  of  these  technical  terms  our  evangehst  systematically 
avoids  the  use  of  the  words  "faith"  (ttutt^),  "knowledge" 
{yvoxTtf),  "wisdom"  {cro(f)ia).  We  must  also  admit  a  de- 
cided advance  beyond  the  Pauhne  doctrine  of  self-surrender, 
towards  an  ecclesiastical  sense  in  the  various  forms  of  the 
verb  "beheve"  which  take  the  place  of  the  Pauhne  "faith." 
Nevertheless  the  supreme  key  to  the  Gospel  is  its  absolute 
loyalty  to  Paulinism.  Its  author  is  the  "vindicator"  (goH) 
of  Paul,  accomphshing  after  Paul's  death  that  "unity  of  the 


282  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Spirit"  in  the  universal  Church,  which  was  the  supreme  aim 
of  Paul's  Hfe.  Even  the  "alien  clement"  of  Greek  meta- 
physic  which  Scott  discovers  in  the  developed  mysticism  of 
the  Logos  doctrine,  is  there  not  because  the  evangehst  would 
consciously  add  a  new  feature  to  the  Pauhne  doctrine,  but 
because  Paul  himself,  or  at  least  the  deutero-PauHne  epistles 
of  the  Asian  group,  have  met  him  half-way  in  his  Hellenistic 
cosmology  and  anthropology.  The  doctrine  of  the  Logos 
underlies  the  whole  Gospel;  but  so  it  would  if  Paul  himself 
had  written  it.  The  term  is  borrowed  from  Philo,  and  some 
of  the  symbolism  of  the  discourses.  But  the  term  only  occurs 
in  the  Prologue,  whose  object  is  to  give  the  reader  the  evan- 
gelist's own  point  of  view,  and  the  dependence  in  the  symbol- 
ism is  slight  and  perhaps  unconscious. 

No  other  provenance  is  imaginable  for  such  a  work  as 
this  than  Ephesus,  headquarters  of  the  Pauline  mission  field, 
where  Paul  spent  the  three  most  fruitful  years  of  his  life, 
whence  he  wrote  at  least  one  of  the  greatest  of  his  epistles, 
and  where  he  left  behind  him  a  true  college  of  supporters  and 
interpreters  (Acts  20:17-38),  as  well  as  opponents  and  false 
teachers  without  and  within.  Ephesus  was  the  center  of  that 
region  to  which  the  great  deutero-Pauline  epistles  are  ad- 
dressed, those  which  we  sometimes  designate  the  Christologi- 
cal,  because  they  principally  occupy  themselves  with  that 
doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ  which  in  the  Fourth  Gospel 
is  formally  developed.  We  must  conceive  as  Paul's  successor 
there  some  converted  Jew  of  Alexandria,  mighty  in  the 
Scriptures,  such  as  that  great  and  loyal  disciple  of  Paul, 
Apollos,  whose  career,  so  far  as  known  to  us,  begins  and 
ends  at  Ephesus  (Acts  18:  24-28;  I  Cor.  16:12).  Only  such 
a  disciple  as  Apollos  can  have  carried  on  there  Paul's  work, 
both  as  disputer  in  "the  school  of  Tyrannus,"  as  confuter  of 
"the  Jews,"  and  persuader  of  the  "disciples  of  John."  Such 
a  disciple  of  Paul  must  we  conceive  as  originator  of  the  type 


THE  EVANGELIST'S  TASK  283 

of  doctrine  embodied  in  the  Fourth  Gospel;  for  it  is  in  terms 
of  Jewish  Alexandrianism  that  the  Christology  of  Paul  is 
here  interpreted.  We  have  no  means  of  proving  that  Apollos 
ever  touched  pen  to  paper;  yet  it  is  permissible  to  say  that  if 
any  identifiable  spirit  speaks  through  the  Fourth  Gospel 
besides  that  of  Paul  it  is  such  a  spirit  as  that  of  Apollos. 
For  with  all  its  originality  and  freedom,  with  all  its  com- 
prehensiveness and  calhoUcity,  the  Fourth  Gospel's  "spirit- 
ualization"  of  the  evangehc  tradition  is  nothing  else  than 
the  incorporation  and  appUcation  of  it  in  the  interest  of  the 
Pauline  gosjx'l.  It  aims  at  cathoHcity;  but  a  catholicity  that 
is  based  on  Paul's  view  of  the  redemptive  drama  of  Incar- 
nation, Atonement,  and  diffusion  of  the  Spirit  of  Adoption. 

To  appreciate  the  indispensableness  of  this  "unity  of  the 
Spirit"  so  longed  for  by  Paul  we  must  go  behind  the  mere 
temporary  phases  of  conflict  between  his  followers  and  those 
of  the  GaUlean  apostles.  The  surface  outbreaks  were  deter- 
mined by  such  external  and  more  or  less  fortuitous  occasions 
as  the  "Jerusalem  decrees"  attempt  to  meet.  Back  of  these 
lies  the  really  fundamental  difference. 

The  Galilean  apostles  had  conceived  the  gospel  as  a  sys- 
tem of  ethics  and  eschatology,  of  precepts  and  reward. 
Their  system  was  distinguished  from  Judaistic  legalism  only 
by  a  new  law  and  a  new  reward.  It  substituted  the  "easy 
yoke"  of  Jesus  for  that  which  "neither  we  nor  our  fathers 
were  able  to  bear,"  and  the  kingdom  guaranteed  in  the  resur- 
rection of  Jesus  to  be  "at  hand"  for  "the  world  to  come" 
which  had  been  monopolized  by  scribes  and  Pharisees. 
Therefore  the  evangelic  tradition  current  in  the  Aramaic- 
speaking  portion  of  the  Church  began  as  a  compilation  of 
the  Precepts  of  Jesus,  perhaps  dispensing  even  with  an  ac- 
count of  his  death  and  resurrection.  To  the  end,  even  when 
enlarged  by  the  addition  of  Mark's  version  of  Petrine  story, 
the  Palestinian  Gospel  remained,  and  still  remains,  an  en- 


284  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

deavor  to  "teach  men  to  obsen'e  all  things  whatsoever  Jesus 
had  commanded"  (Mt.  28:20).  To  Paul  on  the  contrary 
the  gospel  was  not  ethics  but  mysticism.  The  precepts  of 
Jesus  were  to  him  merely  the  better  interpretation  of  the 
abiding  element  of  the  Old  Testament.  They  were  all 
summed  up  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Spirit  of  sonship,  whose 
distinctive  characteristic  is  the  disinterested  love  and  sei^dce 
exempHfied  in  the  self-abnegation  (/ceVcoo-w)  and  passion  of 
the  Son  of  God.  There  is  no  law  save  to  "Have  in  you  the 
mind  which  was  in  Christ  Jesus,  who  humbled  himself  and 
became  obedient  unto  the  cross."  The  gospel  is  the  infusion 
of  this  "mind"  of  Christ;  and  the  possession  of  this  "mind" 
is  antecedent  to  obedience  and  conditions  it.  "Faith"  and 
"hfe"  in  the  Pauline  gospel,  therefore,  take  the  place  of  pre- 
cept and  reward  in  the  Palestinian.  What  a  race  "sold  un- 
der sin,"  "in  bondage  to  sin  and  death,"  requires  is  a  re- 
demption through  grace.  What  a  lost  world  really  needs  is 
not  so  much  light  as  life;  not  knowledge  of  "the  law  of  our 
mind"  impelling  to  righteousness,  but  power  to  overcome 
the  law  of  sin  in  our  members.  Therefore  Paul  felt  no  need, 
after  the  manifestation  in  him  of  the  risen  Son  of  God,  whose 
Spirit  had  been  so  transfused  into  his  own  as  to  make  the 
very  life  he  was  living  in  the  flesh  no  longer  his  life  but 
Christ  living  in  him,  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem  to  them  that  were 
apostles  before  him,  to  hear  their  reminiscences  of  the  earthly 
Jesus,  his  teachings  and  his  miracles.  Therefore  the  Christ 
that  he  knew  and  preached  was  exclusively  the  risen  and 
glorified  Christ,  whose  life  in  us  is  both  victorious  power  in 
the  conflict  against  sin,  and  also  pledge  and  foretaste  of  the 
eternal  life  to  which  we  are  destined.  As  many  as  have  the 
Spirit  of  adoption  are  sons,  and  if  sons  then  also  heirs,  and 
joint  heirs  with  Christ.  Salvation  is  the  apprehending  of 
that  "life"  for  which  we  were  also  apprehended.  If  its  full 
enjoyment  is  still  conceived  under  the  forms  of  Jewish  es- 


THE  EVANGELIST'S  TASK  285 

chatology  this  is  manifestly  non-essential.  On  this  point 
Paul's  thought  even  undergoes  marked  transformation 
within  the  period  between  the  Thcssalonian  letters  and 
Philijipians.  Life,  conceived  as  a  ]:)ower  or  energy  resident 
in  God,  embodied  in  Christ,  transfused  into  us  Ijy  imi)arta- 
tion  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ  when  in  the  self-surrender  of  faith 
the  soul  casts  itself  upon  God — this  to  Paul  is  the  core  and 
kernel  of  the  gospel.  The  greatest  boon  he  can  ask  of  James 
and  Cephas  and  John,  the  "apostles  of  the  circumcision,"  is 
non-interference.  He  does  not  secure  even  this  without  a 
struggle  with  Peter,  the  broadest  minded  of  the  Jerusalem 
trio.* 

Of  course  the  earthly  story  of  Jesus  is  to  Paul  also  of 
value  for  its  precious  sayings,  and  still  more  for  its  exempli- 
iication  of  the  nature  of  the  spirit  of  "sons."  Paul  was  man- 
ifestly at  a  disadvantage  here  as  compared  with  the  eye- 
witnesses. Per  contra  he  excelled  all  in  his  penetration  to 
the  essence  of  the  revelation.  The  redemptive  power  of  the 
gospel  lay  in  its  manifestation  of  lije  communicated  through 
the  channel  of  jaith.  The  message  of  reconciliation  given 
to  preachers  of  the  word  was  that  "God  was  in  Christ  recon- 
ciUng  the  world  unto  himself,  not  imputing  unto  men  their 
trespasses."  Those  who  received  the  word  with  the  self- 
surrender  of  faith  were  baptized  into  the  likeness  of  Jesus' 
self -surrender  to  obedient  death,  and  in  the  rite  were  raised 
with  him,  the  Spirit  of  adoption  and  eternal  life  suffusing  and 
reanimating  their  whole  nature  with  a  life  not  their  own  but 
"hid  with  Christ  in  God."  This  is  the  essential  and  dis- 
tinctive feature  of  the  "gospel"  of  Paul,  as  against  the  Pal- 
estinian represented  by  James  and  John;  for  Peter  occupies 
a  position  of  compromise,  or  mediation.  After  Paul's  death 
the  very  life  of  the  Pauline  churches  depended  upon  a  sys- 
tematic presentation  of  this  doctrine  of  redemption  of  the 

1  Gal.  2:1-21. 


286  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

world  by  incarnation  and  glorification  of  "the  Son  of  God." 
But  it  could  succeed  only  by  virtue  of  some  sort  of  adjust- 
ment to,  or  embodiment  in,  the  historic  tradition  of  the 
Palestinian  church.     It  must  relate  the  story. 

The  fourth  evangehst  was  far  from  being  the  first  to  at- 
tempt such  a  Pauline  restatement  of  the  evangeHc  tradition. 
The  Gospel  of  Mark,  earliest  of  the  Greek  gospels,  earlier 
than  any  save  that  Aramaic  compilation  of  the  Precepts  by 
one  of  the  Galilean  apostles  of  which  we  know  by  tradition 
only,  was  an  attempt  to  tell  the  story  of  Jesus'  career  as  such 
a  manifestation  of  "the  Son  of  God."  Tradition  is  doubtless 
correct  in  attributing  its  origin  to  the  predominantly  PauHne, 
Gentile-Christian  church  of  Rome,  with  employment  of  an- 
ecdotes mainly  derived  from  Peter.  It  pays  scarcely  any  at- 
tention to  the  Precepts  of  Jesus  as  such,  making  the  condition 
of  "entrance  into  life"  imitation  of  the  great  sacrifice.  Its 
cardinal  points  of  doctrine  are  (or  were,  for  the  original 
resurrection  story  is  missing)  (i)  the  Baptism,  in  which 
Jesus  is  made  the  Son  of  God  by  entrance  into  him  of  the 
Spirit,  which  thereafter  controls  his  speech  and  action,  prov- 
ing him  the  Son  of  God;  (2)  the  Manifestation  of  the  Messiah- 
ship,  interpreted  to  the  disciples  by  a  vision  of  Transfigura- 
tion, exhibiting  the  Messiah's  superhuman  character  and 
mission;  (3)  the  Passover  of  the  Passion  and  Resurrection, 
whereby  Jesus  had  set  the  example  of  dying  to  live,  and  been 
exalted  to  "the  right  hand  of  God."  About  the  Baptism  are 
grouped  the  incidents  having  to  do  with  the  formation  of 
the  community  of  disciples  over  against  hostile  Judaism; 
about  the  Supper  the  teachings  respecting  the  world  to 
come.  How  small  was  the  residuum  of  really  authentic  nar- 
rative tradition  at  command  of  the  Greek-speaking  Church 
may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  none  of  the  later  evan- 
gelists have  anything  of  material  value  to  add  to  the  Markan 
narrative  outline.    All  the  Greek  gospels  are  simply  attempts 


THE   EVANGELIST'S  TASK  287 

to  combine  the  Pctrinc  story  with  the  Matthaean  Discourses, 
now  narrative,  now  precept,  assuming  the  preponderance  ac- 
cording to  the  evangelist's  preoccupation  with  ethical  or 
mystical  interests.  These  are  the  distinctive  phenomena  of 
the  great  period  of  gospel-composition  which  ensues  after 
the  death  of  Paul,  in  which,  as  Papias'  inquiries  and  the  in- 
ternal phenomena  alike  make  clear,  the  two  fundamental  fac- 
tors were  (i)  the  Matthiean  Precepts;  (2)  the  Pctrine  Sayings 
and  Doings. 

Neither  the  more  mechanical  combination  of  Mark  with 
the  Sayings  by  our  first  evangelist,  nor  the  esthetically  and 
rhetorically  superior  combination  by  our  third,  could  be  ex- 
pected to  meet  the  deeper  need  of  the  post-apostolic  age,  as 
that  need  would  be  understood  in  such  a  Pauline  center  as 
Ephesus.  Still  less  could  Alark  be  considered  in  itself  a  sat- 
isfactory presentment.  The  Roman  gospel  was  genuinely 
Pauline  in  conception  and  outline,  but  it  scarcely  touched 
the  deeper  elements  of  the  Pauline  evangel.  Its  Paulinism 
was  of  the  cruder,  external  type,  a  Paulinism  of  the  man  in 
the  street,  who  is  aware  of  current  controversy  but  ignores 
its  underlying  causes.  Moreover,  the  deficiencies  of  Mark 
were  generally  recognized.  Docetism  had  laid  hold  of  its 
account  of  the  Baptism  to  divorce  the  locally  and  temporally 
limited  "Jesus"  from  the  emanation  "Christ"  more  con- 
genial to  Greek  duahsm.  Its  primitive  device  of  a  Trans- 
figuration vision  informing  the  leading  apostles  by  a  Voice 
from  heaven  of  the  transcendental  nature  and  mission  of 
Jesus  was  open  to  similar  abuse,  and  could  not  meet  the 
real  requirement.  For  from  a  Pauline  point  of  view  it  would 
be  needful  to  exhibit  the  entire  career  of  Jesus  as  a  "taber- 
nacling" of  the  Son  of  God  in  human  flesh  to  the  manifes- 
tation of  his  glory.'  Finally,  its  very  "order"  and  historical 
trustworthiness  were  admittedly  open  to  criticism.     In  par- 

1  So  Jn.  1:14  compared  with  Mk.  9:  2-10. 


288  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

ticular  its  account  of  the  Resurrection  itself  had  proved  so  ill- 
suited  to  the  times  as  to  have  been  suppressed  almost  from 
the  beginning;  yet  the  two  versions  by  which  our  first  and 
third  evangelists  had  sought  to  supply  the  gap  were  so  hope- 
lessly irreconcilable  with  one  another  as  to  make  the  need 
now  greater  than  ever.  After  Rome  and  south  Syria  and 
Antioch  had  done  their  best,  and  still  in  their  embodiment  of 
the  evangelic  tradition  had  given  no  adequate  expression  to 
the  most  fundamental  of  all  the  PauHne  doctrines  regard- 
ing the  Person  of  Christ,  his  Incarnation  and  Glorification; 
still  less  to  the  Mystical  Union  of  the  behever  with  him, 
the  message  of  life  by  faith;  what  else  could  be  expected  but 
that  Ephesus  should  put  forth  its  "spiritual  gospel,"  coun- 
teracting on  the  one  hand  the  ultra-Pauline  duahsm  of  the 
Docetists  by  emphasizing  the  historic  reality  of  the  Incarna- 
tion and  atoning  death  and  Resurrection;  counteracting  on 
the  other  the  crudities  of  Jewish  legahsm  and  eschatology 
by  the  doctrine  of  eternal  life  by  transfusion  of  the  Spirit. 
Not  during  Paul's  lifetime  nor  for  long  after  could  such  a 
work  be  undertaken,  for  the  whole  period  of  Jesus'  earthly 
career  was  for  Paul  a  period  of  the  humiliation  of  the  Son  of 
God  under  the  guise  of  a  servant,  systematically  and  on 
principle  to  be  subordinated  to  that  in  which  he  had  been 
"manifested  as  the  Son  of  God  with  power  by  the  resurrec- 
tion from  the  dead."  Not  until  a  later  age  had  felt  the 
pressure  of  another  type  of  gospel  marked  by  a  larger  and 
larger  sense  of  the  divinity  manifest  in  the  earthly  career  of 
the  Nazarene,  an  age  forced  back  upon  the  historical  tradi- 
tion of  the  Galilean  apostles  by  the  vagaries  of  Gnostic  specu- 
lation, could  the  combination — indispensable  though  it  was — 
be  effected. 

It  is  the  chief  merit  of  Scott's  illuminating  book  that  it 
recognizes  this  double  purpose  of  the  fourth  evangelist,  and 
in  good  degree  correlates  it  with  the  conditions  of  the  time. 


THE   EVANGELIST'S  TASK  289 

"The  author,  writing  in  a  period  of  transition,  is  continually 
striving  to  find  place  within  the  same  system  for  opposite  types  of 
thought  and  belief."  He  has  even  "incorporated  in  his  work 
alien  fragments  which  do  not  enter  into  its  substance,"  made  it 
a  "union  of  opposites"  a  "blending  of  various  tendencies."  ^ 

The  question  to  what  extent  we  can  attribute  this  com- 
bination of  opposites  to  a  single  hand  is  a  very  delicate  one, 
which  we  shall  have  occasion  to  consider  hereafter.  Scott 
applies  his  principle  to  the  limit  in  favor  of  the  unity  of  the 
Gospel  (excepting  of  course  the  Appendix),  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  sees  so  ditTercnt  a  spirit  in  the  First  Epistle  as  to  feel 
compelled  to  attribute  this  to  a  later  author  of  the  same 
school.  The  converse  application  may  seem  to  others  more 
advisable;  but  the  principle  is  profoundly  true,  and  reveals 
the  real  task  of  the  evangelist  as  he  himself  conceives  it. 
He  aims  to  reinterpret  the  evangelic  tradition  in  such  man- 
ner as  to  exhibit,  w'hether  by  sayings  or  doings,  its  ''spiritual" 
import.  His  material  is  selected  and  adapted  with  all  the 
sovereign  superiority  to  historical  conditions  of  a  true  disciple 
of  Paul,  the  disciple  after  the  Spirit.  The  object  is  to  bring 
out  both  by  dialogue  and  incident  the  inner  gospel  of  "God 
manifest  in  the  flesh,"  that  by  belief  in  it  the  reader  may 
imbibe  the  "life."  In  the  Prologue,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
evangelist  sets  forth  his  personal  standpoint  and  philosophi- 
cal principles;  and  here,  but  only  here,  he  employs  the  cat- 
egories of  Alexandrian  metaphysics;  for  these  were  congenial 
to  him,  and  doubtless  would  seem  to  his  readers  the  most 
natural  key  to  the  Gospel.  The  identification  of  the  pre- 
existent  Wisdom  of  God,  w^hich  in  Paul's  view  had  become 
incarnate  in  Jesus  Christ,  with  the  Logos  of  Hellenistic 
Stoicism  is  not  obtruded.     It   merely  informs  the   reader 

1  Fourth  Gospel,  pp.  lo,  ii.    With  Mr.  Scott's  admirable  presentation  we 
venture  to  ask  a  comparison  of  the  briefer  statement  here  expanded  from 
The  Hibbert  Journal  for  January,  1905  (III,  2),  pp.  359  f. 
Fourth  Gospel — 19 


290  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

from  what  point  of  view  the  evangeHst  approaches  his  sub- 
ject. Thenceforth,  as  in  the  outhne  of  Mark,  the  sacraments 
of  baptism  and  the  supper  and  their  significance  become 
largely  determinative  both  of  ordei  and  selection  of  material. 
The  historic  Christ  is  he  who  "came  by  water  and  by  blood." 
Ancient  tradition  had  accounted  for  the  absence  of  chron- 
ological sequence  in  the  Petrine  narrative  by  the  statement 
that  Peter  had  used  anecdotes  as  they  seemed  "fitted  to  the 
occasion"  (7r/309  tou?  ^^peioy?).  Our  evangeUst  follows  this 
example,  but  employs  a  chronology  of  his  own  based  on  in- 
dependent tradition  and  the  "feasts  of  the  Jews"  in  sym- 
boHcal  treatment.^  Polemic  aims  are  present.  We  are 
grateful  to  Mr.  Scott  for  his  judicious  estimate  in  particular 
of  the  view  which  Baldensperger  recalls  from  the  forgotten 
pages  of  Michaelis  concerning  this  evangelist's  effort  to 
counteract  an  exaggerated  estimate  of  "John."  For  in  this 
Gospel  the  Baptist  does  not  have  this  title,  nor  even  receive 
credit  as  originator  of  the  rite.  He  issues  no  call  to  repent- 
ance or  warning  of  judgment,  has  no  relation  to  the  publi- 
cans and  sinners — this  class  are  altogether  non-existent  in 
the  Fourth  Gospel — nor  is  the  rite  he  employs  a  "baptism 
of  repentance  unto  remission  of  sins."  Only  the  Lamb  of 
God  to  whom  he  points  can  "take  away  the  sin  of  the  world." 
Baptism  is  a  purely  Christian  institution  having  no  sense 
but  the  Pauline  of  the  new  birth  of  the  Spirit.  The  Fore- 
runner merely  employs  it  prophetically  by  special  divine 
direction,  as  a  symbol  of  the  new  dispensation  of  the  Spirit, 
a  token  to  Israel  of  its  Dispenser  (Jn.  1:25-27,  29-34). 
Certainly  the  evangelist  has  adapted  his  portrait  of  the  Bap- 
tist and  his  rite  to  the  special  need  of  the  "disciples  of  John" 
at  Ephesus,  known  to  the  second  century  as  Hemerobaptists; 
yet  even  this  polemic  is  subordinate.  Scott  is  certainly  right 
in  pointing  out  that  all  forms  of  opposition  and  misbehef 

1  See  below,  Chapter  XV.     Topography  and  Chronology. 


THE  EVANGELIST'S  TASK  291 

arc  combined   for  this  evangelist  in  the  attitude  of  "the 
Jews." 

Apologetic  and  aetiologic  aims  are  present.  Ecclesias- 
ticism,  sacramcntarian  interest,  the  defense  of  Christological 
doctrine  against  Jewish  and  other  aspersion,  including  per- 
haps that  of  Basilides  himself,  are  present.  They  may  con- 
ceivably furnish  the  means  of  a  more  accurate  dating  than 
hitherto;  they  at  least  suffice  to  determine  the  epoch  of  real 
debate,  whereof  the  disputes  of  Jesus  with  "the  Jews" 
regarding  his  own  preexistence  and  relation  to  the  Father  are 
a  mere  reflection.  But  the  question  for  us  is  not  so  much  a 
question  of  date,  as  of  the  evangelist's  purpose;  and  the 
supreme  interest  of  the  evangelist  is  something  more  and 
greater  than  any  temporary  polemic.  He  aims  to  "bring 
out"  the  Pauline  gospel  of  life  by  faith  in  the  incarnate  Son 
of  God,  through  an  interpretation  of  the  current  evangelic 
tradition,  and  of  the  sacred  rites  of  the  Church.  Like  the 
second  century  compilers  of  the  Ev.  Petri  and  those  who 
labored  at  the  formation  of  a  fourfold  composite  gospel, 
the  fourth  evangehst  also  is  a  harmonizer;  but  not  in  the  ex- 
ternal, mechanical  sense  of  their  work.  We  should  class 
him  rather  with  our  first  and  third  evangelists,  whose  work 
cannot  have  long  preceded  his  own.  Both  of  these  are  intent 
on  combining  the  two  types  of  gospel  which  Papias  shows 
us  to  have  been  still  dominant  in  the  time  of  the  Jerusalem 
Elders.  But  "John's"  effort  at  harmony  goes  far  deeper. 
The  work  of  ]Mark  is  really  nearer  in  purpose  to  his,  as 
J.  Weiss  suggests  in  directing  us  to  the  affinity  of  these  two 
otherwise  so  different  gospels.  Weiss  calls  our  attention  to 
their  similarity  in  the  symbolic  employment  of  narrative 
miaterial;  but  the  deepest  point  of  sympathy  is  in  the  effort 
to  combine  Pauline  doctrine  with  Galilean  tradition.  Mark 
also  had  disregarded  the  Jewish-Christian  idea  of  Jesus' 
earthly  Hfe  as  merely  that  of  the  "f)rophet  like  unto  Moses," 


292  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

who  gives  a  "new  law"  as  the  condition  of  a  millennial  king- 
dom; he  too  had  aimed,  however  crudely,  to  present  the  life 
and  especially  the  death  of  Jesus  as  a  manifestation  of  the 
Son  of  God.  Mark  also  had  aimed  to  set  forth  ministry  and 
passion  as  the  types  of  life  and  death  "  in  the  Spirit,"  that 
men  "might  believe  that  Jesus  is  the  Son  of  God,  and  by 
believing  might  have  life  in  his  name."  But  at  the  beginning 
of  the  second  century  the  supreme  demand  of  the  Church 
was  for  a  deeper,  more  comprehensive  statement  of  the 
gospel  in  its  two  aspects,  ethical  and  mystical,  law  and  re- 
demption, light  and  power.  For  all  believers  Jesus  was 
"The  Way."  An  Alexandrian  Paulinist  had  compared  him 
to  the  High  Priest  of  humanity  entered  within  the  veil  of 
the  great  world-sanctuary  "a  new  and  living  Way"  whereby 
we  come  to  the  Father.  It  remained  so  to  present  precepts 
and  story  in  one,  that  the  eternal  Christ  might  be  perceived 
to  be  both  Truth  and  Life,  that  by  him  men  might  come  unto 
the  Father. 

The  eternal  values  of  the  gospel  were  certainly  those 
emphasized  in  Paulinism.  A  mere  new  standard  of  duty 
summarizing  and  simphfying  the  law  and  the  prophets 
made  no  revolutionary  improvement  on  Stoic  ethics;  Jewish 
eschatology  had  everywhere  been  found  wanting.  To  keep 
abreast  of  Greek  conceptions  of  "eternal  life,"  it  needed  to 
transform  itself  at  a  pace  well-nigh  too  rapid  for  the  Church. 
This  was  indeed  already  a  Greek-speaking,  Gentile,  Pauline 
Church,  and  could  not  be  fully  satisfied  with  any  statement 
of  its  gospel  not  fundamentally  based  on  the  great  Christo- 
logical  principles  of  the  Pauline  epistles,  Spirit  and  Life.  It 
must  have  a  "  spirituahzed "  restatement  of  the  tradition  of 
both  the  Sayings  and  Doings.  From  whence  could  such  a 
restatement  emanate,  if  not  from  Ephesus,  the  great  scat  of 
the  PauHne  school?  And  what  should  we  expect  it  to  be,  if 
not  a  "bringing  out"  under  forms  borrowed  from  the  mass 


THE  EVANGELIST'S    TASK  293 

of  current  narrative,  and  freely  adapted  to  the  special  needs 
of  the  time,  of  the  transcendental,  eternal  Christ  of  Pauline 
theology,  the  Way  to  the  Father  which  is  both  Truth  and 
Life? 

The  question  whether  the  three  Epistles  which  accompany 
and  supplement  the  Gospel  should  be  attributed  to  the  same, 
or  to  a  later  hand,  will  largely  depend  on  the  attitude  dis- 
played on  one  side  and  the  other  toward  the  Docetic  heretics. 
The  Gospel  has  its  own  denunciation  of  unworthy  shepherds, 
whose  access  to  the  sheep  has  not  been  by  the  Door  of  Christ, 
but  across  and  over  the  protecting  barriers  of  the  fold.  Their 
mercenary  motives  and  cowardice  in  time  of  danger,  are  con- 
trasted with  the  conduct  of  the  Good  Shepherd  in  forms 
drawn  from  the  book  of  Ezekiel.^  The  flock  as  a  whole,  how- 
ever, have  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  voice  of  these  "strangers." 
In  the  Epistles  the  situation  seems  less  favorable,  or  at  all 
events  there  is  a  more  expHcit  and  direct  polemic.  The  un- 
worthy element  have  "gone  out  from"  the  brotherhood 
because  "  they  were  not  of  it";  their  moral  laxity,  substituting 
"illumination"  for  the  New  Commandment  of  brotherly 
love,  is  directly  denounced;  their  Docetic  presentation  of 
Christ  as  coming  "by  water  only  (/.  c,  in  the  sacrament  of 
baptism  conceived  as  the  channel  of  transfusion  of  the  Spirit 
in  the  case  both  of  Jesus  and  of  disciples)  but  not  by  blood" 
(/.  e.,  not  in  the  atoning  death  commemorated  in  the  sacra- 
mental cup),  is  indignantly  repudiated;  their  teaching  is 
stigmatized  as  the  spirit  of  Antichrist,  as  against  the  in- 
spired witness  of  the  Church;  in  fact  the  author  states  in  so 
many  words: 

"These  things  have  I  written  unto  you  concerning  them  that 
would  lead  you  astray." 

1  With  Jn.  10:  11-16  cf.  Ezek.  34:  1-16. 


294  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

These  phenomena  have  a  bearing  on  questions  of  date  and 
authorship.  But  the  modem  world  does  not  require  a  de- 
tailed refutation  of  the  ponderous  absurdities  of  Kreyenbiihl 
to  prove  that  the  Gospel  is  anything  but  a  product  of  Gnosti- 
cism and  the  school  of  Menander  in  Antioch.  In  Gospel  as 
well  as  Epistles  Docetism  is  distinctly  opposed  in  a  whole 
series  of  passages.  We  need  mention  only  the  "becoming" 
flesh  of  the  Logos;  the  exposition  of  the  Eucharist  as  the 
flesh  and  blood  of  Christ,  participation  in  which  is  indis- 
pensable to  "life;  "  the  special  manifestation  of  the  resurrec- 
tion body  to  Thomas.  Still  there  can  be  no  question  of  that 
double  aspect  of  the  Gospel  in  respect  to  points  of  dispute 
between  Gnostic  and  orthodox  which  Scott  so  distinctly 
brings  out.  The  author  goes  at  least  to  the  verge  of  self- 
contradiction  in  his  hospitality  toward  both  Gnostic  and 
Jewish  Christian  conceptions.  Some  passages,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  are  demonstrably  due  to  redactional  revision, 
among  them  such  particularly  as  come  nearer  the  Synoptic 
type,  and  it  may  be  possible  to  show  that  instances  like  the 
correction  of  Mark  in  Jn.  19:17  that  Jesus  bore  his  own  cross, 
and  the  seeming  reference  of  9:2-3,  24  ff,  to  Basilides' 
doctrine  of  prenatal  guilt,  are  alien  to  the  earliest  form  of  the 
Gospel.  Nevertheless  the  Gospel  must  first  be  treated  as  a 
whole  and  in  its  present  form;  and  thus  treated  it  cannot  be 
said  that  its  attitude  toward  Docetism  is  incongruous  with  that 
of  the  Epistles.  The  latter,  it  is  true,  seem  to  reflect  a  more 
advanced  and  embittered  stage  of  the  conflict;  they  are 
openly  and  professedly  polemic,  while  the  Gospel  is  in  high 
degree  irenic  and  even  sympathetic  toward  some  of  the 
leading  ideas  of  Gnosticism.  It  does  not  follow  that  the 
same  hand  which  originally  compiled  the  Gospel,  at  all 
events  the  hand  which  contributed  most  largely  to  its  present 
form,  may  not  have  been  the  same  which  under  later  condi- 
tions, in  a  more  embittered  stage  of  the  conflict,  supplemented 


THE   EVANGELIST'S  TASK  .295 

its  message  by  a  renewed  and  greater  emphasis  on  the  side 
of  ethical  retjuirement  and  the  historic  tracUtion,  coupled  with 
a  denunciation  of  those  who  had  "gone  out  from"  the 
brotherhood  to  follow  the  spirit  of  Antichrist. 

The  same  profound  loyalty  to  Paulinism  which  furnishes 
the  real  clue  to  the  combined  catholicity  and  freedom  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  would  avail,  if  adequately  applied,  to  explain 
other  features  which  to  many  critics  have  seemed  obscure, 
or  have  suggested  the  intervention  of  some  alien  source  or 
influence.  The  categories  of  "sources  and  influences," 
though  instructively  employed  by  Scott,  are  not  in  fact  fully 
adequate  for  the  purpose.  We  have  already  taken  a  pre- 
liminary gUmpsc  at  our  evangelist's  relation  to  Synoptic 
tradition,  and  shall  sec  later  somewhat  more  fully  in  what 
sense  it  has  served  him  as  a  "source."  It  is  only  rarely  that 
we  can  apply  the  term  "source  employment"  to  his  use  of 
the  Pauline  writings.  Yet  surely  Paulinism  is  to  him  much 
more  than  an  "influence."  We  should  call  it  rather  his  uni- 
versal solvent  in  which  all  elements  of  mere  historical  tradi- 
tion are  held  in  solution  until  precipitated  and  recast  in  his 
own  molds  of  thought. 

The  well-known  instance  of  the  altercation  with  "the 
Jews"  regarding  the  seed  of  Abraham  according  to  the  flesh 
and  that  according  to  the  spirit,  the  bond  and  the  free,  in 
Jn.  8:31-47  may  serve  in  comparison  with  its  parallels  in 
Gal.  4:21-31  and  Rom.  6: 16-23  ^s  an  example  of  "John's" 
occasional  direct  employment  of  Pauline  material.  As  a  rule 
the  relation  is  far  deeper,  pertaining  to  the  fundamental 
doctrines  and  modes  of  thought,  such  as  the  interpretation 
of  the  sacraments,  the  doctrine  of  mystic  union  "in  Christ," 
and  the  doctrine  of  the  Spirit.  Examples  of  the  latter  type 
may  be  found  (i)  in  the  "parable"  of  the  Vine  and  the 
branches  (15  : 1-6)  adai)ted  from  Is.  27 :  2-6  (LXX),  compared 
with  Eph.  4:4-16;  (2)  in  the  "high  priestly"  Prayer  for  the 


296  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Church,  substituted  in  17 : 1-26  for  the  agony  in  Gethsemane, 
compared  with  Paul's  prayer  in  Eph.  i :  3-23  for  the  unity  of 
the  redeemed  Israel  of  God.  One  need  only  penetrate  be- 
neath the  surface  to  the  really  dominant  ideas  of  the  Pauline 
passages,  in  order  to  reahze  how  thoroughly  the  fourth 
evangelist  is  mastered  by  their  spirit  and  reproduces  it  in 
forms  of  his  own.  But  since  detailed  comparison  would  carry 
us  too  far,  we  may  content  ourselves  with  one  further  illus- 
tration, for  which  there  is  the  more  occasion  in  that  Scott, 
who  seldom  fails  in  this  respect,  seems  not  to  have  done 
justice  to  the  relation. 

"John's"  doctrine  of  the  Paraclete  (/.  e.,  "advocate"  or 
"preacher")  completely  transforms  the  Synoptic,  which 
mentions  only  a  promise  of  Jesus  to  the  disciples  in  view  of 
coming  persecution,  that  when  summoned  before  earthly 
tribunals  they  should  have  an  "Advocate"  to  conduct  their 
defense  with  more  than  human  eloquence.  The  Spirit  of 
God  should  speak  through  them,  as  through  prophets  of  old, 
so  that  they  need  "take  no  thought  how  or  what  they  should 
speak"  (Mt.  10:17-20).  In  the  synoptic  form  the  recollec- 
tion of  Paul's  inspired  defenses  "before  governors  and 
kings"  is  still  fresh,  and  clearly  dominates  the  form  of  the 
reported  saying.  Something  of  this  original  relation  of  the 
promise  of  the  Spirit  as  "Advocate"  still  remains  in  the  con- 
nection of  Jn.  15:18-27  between  the  predicted  hatred  and 
persecution  of  the  world  and  the  promise  of  the  Paraclete, 
"the  Spirit  of  truth  which  proceedeth  from  the  Father," 
although  here  the  function  of  defense  before  tribunals  has 
given  place  to  that  of  a  "bearing  witness"  of  Christ  in  which 
the  disciples  are  to  share.  In  the  following  context  (16:  7-14) 
the  function  of  the  Paraclete  is  described  in  its  two  aspects, 
(i)  that  which  it  presents  to  the  world,  which  is  simply  con- 
victed by  it  "in  respect  of  (its  own)  sin,  and  of  righteousness 
(as  shown  in  the  Church)  and  of  judgment"  (in  its  God- 


THE  EVANGELIST'S    TASK  297 

given  triumph  over  the  power  of  Satan  in  the  world);  (2)  that 
which  it  presents  to  the  Church  as  Revealer  of  the  things  of 
Christ.  In  the  former  we  recognize  an  adaptation  of  Paul's 
saying  to  the  Corinthians  (I  Cor.  14:24,  25)  concerning  the 
outsider,  who  in  presence  of  the  spirit  of  prophecy  exercised 
by  the  Church, 

"is  convinced  of  all,  he  is  judged  of  all:  and  thus  are  the  secrets  of 
his  heart  made  manifest;  and  so,  falling  down  on  his  face,  he  will 
worship  God,  and  report  that  God  is  in  you  of  a  truth." 

In  the  latter  wc  recognize  that  wider  and  continually  widen- 
ing aspect  of  the  promise  which  finds  its  fulfilment  in  the 
Pentecostal  gifts  of  "prophecy,"  "exhortation,"  "insight" 
{yva)(Tc<;),  and  "edification,"  all  of  which  for  the  primitive 
Church  are  comprised  under  the  term  TrapaKXija-i'i  ("exhorta- 
tion" or  "comfort").  It  is  because  of  its  far-reaching  de- 
velopment of  this  doctrine  of  the  "witness  of  the  Spirit,"  in 
Hne  with  the  Pauline  conception  of  I  Cor.  2:6-16,  that  the 
Fourth  Gospel  so  commended  itself  to  the  Montanists,  and 
conversely  was  so  obnoxious  to  their  opponents  at  Rome.^ 

But  in  14:15-24  the  coming  of  the  Paraclete  is  made 
practically  to  take  the  place  of  the  Second  Coming  of  Christ 
himself.  Judas  not  Iscariot  '  is  disabused  of  the  crude 
eschatology  of  Judaism,  and  taught  that  the  eternal  indwell- 
ing of  the  Father  and  the  risen  Christ  in  the  believer's  heart 
is  the  real  Second  Coming.  It  is  natural  to  incjuire  what 
function  then  remains  for  the  Paraclete,  and  why  it  is  neces- 
sar}'  to  add  in  verses  25-26  the  further  promise  to  send  the 
Spirit,  which  already  in  verse  16  had  been  described  as 
"another  Paraclete"  (here  =  "Intercessor" — /.  e.,  another 
besides  Christ  himself,  who  has  just  promised  to  intercede 
for  them  with  the  Father).     Scott  very  justly  replies  that  in 

*  See  above,  p.  235. 

2  The  name  of  this  Judas  is  possibly  chosen  lo  suggest  the  Jew  ('louSatoj) 
who  is  merely  unenlightened,  not  an  enemy. 


298  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

strictness  there  is  no  logical  place  in  "John's"  theology  for 
the  Spirit,  as  distinguished  from  the  risen  Christ.  But  to 
discard  the  doctrine  of  the  Spirit  would  have  been  an  in- 
conceivably revolutionary  departure  from  the  most  funda- 
mental principle  of  Paulinism,  not  to  say  of  Christianity  itself. 
If  the  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  were  forgotten,  what  remained 
to  convict  the  world?  On  the  other  hand,  to  speak  of  the 
Spirit  as  "another  Intercessor"  is  neither  an  innovation  on 
the  part  of  the  fourth  evangehst,  nor  contradictory,  as  has 
sometimes  been  maintained,  of  I  Jn,  2:1,  where  we  read: 

"If  any  man  sin  we  have  a  Paraclete  (Intercessor)  with  the 
Father,  Jesus  Christ  the  righteous,  and  he  is  the  propitiation 
(lAacr/xos)  for  our  sins,  and  not  for  our  sins  only,  but  also  for  the 
sins  of  the  whole  world." 

The  figure  of  Christ  as  the  high  priest  of  humanity  entering 
into  the  cosmic  holy  of  holies  with  the  blood  of  the  atonement 
(Heb.  9:  24;  10:  25)  may  well  have  affected  the  form  of  this 
latter  passage,  and  the  author  of  Hebrews  is  quite  likely  to 
have  in  mind  the  passage  often  quoted  from  Philo  {Vita 
Mos.  iii,  14)  on  the  intercession  of  the  high  priest  who  as  he 
wears  the  TreraXov  ("breastplate"?)  when  he  enters  before 
God  in  the  Temple  "symbolically  makes  the  whole  world 
(represented  in  the  TreraXov)  enter  in  with  him." 

"  For  it  was  necessary  that  the  man  (Aaron)  consecrated  to  the 
Father  of  the  world  should  employ  as  Intercessor  {-TrupaKXrJTw) 
his  son  {i.  e.,  the  ideal  cosmos),  most  perfect  in  virtue,  to  ensure 
forgiveness  of  sins  and  a  supply  of  richest  blessings." 

If  there  is  any  relation  whatever  between  Philo's  Inter- 
cessor represented  by  the  high  priest's  ireTaXov  and  the  "other 
Intercessor"  of  Jn.  14:16 — and  of  this  we  are  more  than 
doubtful — it  is  utterly  beside  the  mark  to  adduce  the  passage 
from  Vita  Mosis;  not  merely,  as  Scott  maintains,  because 
"the  TrapaKXrjTO'i  of  the  Gospel  has  nothing  in  common  with 


THE   EVANGELIST'S  TASK  299 

that  of  Philo  but  the  name,"  but  because  the  whole  passage 
about  the  intercession  of  the  risen  Christ  in  heaven  simul- 
taneously with  that  of  the  Spirit  on  earth  as  "another  In- 
tercessor" has  a  derivation  so  direct  and  simple  that  once  our 
attention  has  been  called  to  it  the  relation  becomes  obvious. 
The  passage  in  I  Jn.  2:1  may  evince,  as  stated,  an  additional 
influence  from  the  author  of  Hebrews;  but  for  that  of  Jn,  14: 
12-17  concerning  the  intercession  of  Christ  in  heaven  and 
of  the  Spirit  upon  earth  no  other  derivation  is  possible  than 
Paul's  great  chapter  on  the  work  and  witness  of  the  Spirit, 
where  with  manifest  allusion  to  the  unintelligible,  half  ar- 
ticulate prayers  uttered  "in  a  tongue"  or  "in  the  Spirit" 
he  declares  first  that: 

"the  Spirit  himself  maketh  intercession  (vTrepevTvyxdvet.)  for  us 
with  inarticulate  groanings;  but  he  that  searcheth  the  hearts 
knoweth  what  is  the  mind  of  the  Spirit,  because  he  maketh  inter- 
cession for  the  saints  according  to  the  will  of  God," 

and  but  a  few  verses  farther  on  continues : 

"Who  is  he  that  shall  condemn?  It  is  Christ  Jesus  that  died 
(who  is  the  judge),  yea  rather,  that  was  raised  from  the  dead,  who 
is  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  who  also  maketh  intercession  for  us."  ^ 

If  there  seems  to  be  confusion  of  thought  between  the 
Intercessor  for  the  saints  before  the  throne  of  the  heavenly 
Judge  and  the  "other  Intercessor"  who  here  upon  earth 
fulfils  all  the  manifold  functions  of  the  Church's  7rapdK\7]To<; 
we  must  blame,  not  the  fourth  evangehst,  but  the  Apostle 
Paul.  Nevertheless,  as  an  indication  how  remote  are  these 
"  Johannine"  discourses  from  the  Sayings  of  Jesus  it  is  in- 
structive to  note  that  of  all  the  many  senses  in  which  the 
promise  is  developed,  partly  on  the  basis  of  the  Church's 
experience,  partly  on  that  of  Pauline  doctrine,  the  only  one 
which  has  entirely  disappeared  is  that  which  by  synoptic  re- 

1  Rom.  8:  26-34. 


300  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

port,  as  well  as  by  all  rules  of  sound  historical  criticism,  must 
be  considered  to  most  nearly  represent  the  original  utterance : 

"When  they  deUver  you  up,  be  not  anxious  how  or  what  ye 
shall  speak:  for  it  shall  be  given  you  in  that  hour  what  ye  shall 
speak.  For  it  is  not  ye  that  speak,  but  the  Spirit  of  your  Father 
that  speaketh  in  you."  ^ 

In  his  development  of  this  promise  of  the  "Paraclete"  we 
have  an  example  of  the  sense  in  which  the  fourth  evangelist 
understood  his  task  of  "bringing  out"  the  spiritual  gospel 
of  Paul  from  the  current  evangehc  tradition. 

1  Mt.  lo:  19-20. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE    DISCIPLE    WHOM    JESUS    LOVED    AND    HIS    RELATION    TO 
THE  AUTHOR  ^ 

Since  the  problem  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  no  longer  a 
problem  of  date,  but  of  authorship,'  the  main  question  to  be 
determined  by  the  indirect  internal  evidence  will  be  that  of 
the  personahty  reflected  in  the  work,  and  with  this  is  inextri- 
cably bound  up  that  of  the  figure,  elsewhere  unknown,  of 
"the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved";  a  figure  unexpectedly  in- 
troduced in  the  second  part  of  the  Gospel,  which  deals  ex- 
clusively with  the  Lord's  Supper,  the  Cross,  and  the  Resur- 
rection. This  portion  of  the  Gospel  is  doubly  marked  off 
from  the  first  twelve  chapters,  which  deal  with  the  public 
ministry;  (a)  by  the  general  closing  reflections  on  the  results 
of  Jesus'  public  work  in  12:37-50;  (b)  by  the  transition  in 
13:1  to  those  to  whom  Jesus  now  gave  himself  exclusively, 
"his  own  which  were  in  the  world,"  whom  as  his  beloved 
"he  loved  unto  the  end."  Among  these  one  is  conspicuous 
as  "the  beloved  disciple"  par  eminence.  He  is  not  merely 
Jesus'  "friend"  (4>l\o^)^  as  Lazarus  was  (11:3,  n),  but  his 
aja7rr]r6<i,  as  Jcsus  himself  is  the  'AyaTrrjro'i  of  the  Father; 
he  is  the  type  of  true  discipleship. 

Even  the  superficial  obsen^er  cannot  fail  to  perceive  that 
the  problem  of  authorship  is  somehow  linked  with  that  of 
this  mysterious  figure.  Elsewhere  all  evangelic  tradition 
appears  inseparable   from   the   personality  of  Peter,     The 

1  The  substance  of  this  chapter  was  published  in  the  Expositor  (Series  VII, 
Vol.  IV  (1Q07),  pp.  324  ff.)  under  the  same  title. 

2  See  Chapter  I. 

301 


302  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Markan  story,  which  supplies  the  entire  substance  of  the 
narrative  outline  of  both  Matthew  and  Luke,  is  certainly 
based,  as  tradition  has  always  maintained,  on  the  reminis- 
cences of  Peter.  Even  in  the  meager  instances  where  our 
first  and  third  evangehsts  venture  to  add  some  slight  new 
feature  of  narrative  the  figure  of  Peter  is  usually  made  cen- 
tral, as  if  to  emphasize  the  completeness  of  dependence  of 
all  authentic  early  tradition  upon  this  single  thread.  The 
outline  of  Mark  is  that  adopted  in  general  by  the  fourth 
evangelist  also.  He  too  begins  with  the  Appearance  of  the 
Baptist  and  Call  of  the  First  Disciples,  marks  the  culmina- 
tion of  the  GaHlean  ministry  by  the  Feeding  of  the  Multitude, 
the  Walking  on  the  Sea,  and  the  Confession  of  Peter,  and 
concludes  the  story  of  Jesus'  career  by  the  journey  through 
Perea  to  Jerusalem  and  the  Passion  and  Resurrection  at  the 
final  Passover.  But  here,  in  the  three  instances  of  the  Supper, 
the  Cross,  and  the  Resurrection  another  sponsor  appears. 
The  first  instance  is  the  most  conspicuous  of  our  evangelist's 
departures  from  the  stereotyped  Synoptic  outhne;  the  other 
two  are  conspicuous. both  for  their  intrinsic  interest  and  for 
the  admitted  failure  of  first-hand  testimony.  For  according 
to  Mark's  narrative  the  flight  of  Peter  to  Galilee  before  the 
final  catastrophe  made  this  unavailable. 

Aside  from  the  Appendix,  which  has  its  own  answer  to 
the  question,  Who  is  meant  by  "the  Disciple  whom  Jesus 
loved"?  this  figure  appears  only  in  the  three  instances 
named.  Except  at  the  Cross  he  is  introduced  in  association 
with  Peter,  but  certainly  not  as  of  lower  rank.  Rather  he 
appears  in  the  role  of  one  who  precedes  Peter,  the  fountain 
authority  of  the  Church's  evangehc  tradition,  in  apprehen- 
sion of  the  real  significance  of  what  transpires.  At  the  Cross, 
where  Peter's  absence  is  painfully  conspicuous,  he  becomes 
by  appointment  of  Jesus  himself  the  guardian  of  Jesus' 
mother. 


THE  BELOVED  DISCIPLE  303 

No  ordinary  place  or  function  can  be  attributed  to  such  a 
character.  The  distinguishing  trait  by  which  he  is  first 
introduced  as  "lying  in  Jesus'  bosom,"  and  the  name  "that 
disciple  whom  Jesus  loved"  tolerate  no  secondary  place. 
The  phrases  have  the  symboHc  significance  characteristic  of 
this  Gospel.  The  Gospel  of  Mark  had  made  prominent  the 
Jewish  "hardness  of  heart"  which  had  infected  the  Twelve, 
so  that  even  they,  "having  eyes  saw  not,  and  having  ears 
heard  not,"  ^  and  in  the  most  conspicuous  instances  had 
made  Peter  the  special  object  of  rebuke  for  this  common 
failing.  The  Fourth  Gospel  presents  the  phenomenon  not 
negatively  only,  but  affirmatively.  In  contrast  to  the  ob- 
tusencss  of  Peter  and  the  other  disciples  is  the  insight  of  "the 
disciple  whom  Jesus  loved,"  The  mystery  of  Jesus'  self- 
surrender  to  the  Cross — incomprehensible  to  Peter  (Mk.  8: 
31-33), — nay,  his  actual  stiffening  of  the  faltering  purpose 
of  the  betrayer;  the  mystery  of  the  empty  tomb,  which  had 
left  Peter  only  "wondering"  (Lk.  24:12),  arc  to  this  disciple 
an  open  book.  To  him  is  dchvcred  the  care  of  Jesus'  dearest 
upon  earth.  For  what  signiticance  can  the  scene  of  Jesus' 
mother  at  the  Cross  have  had  to  an  evangehst  bent  on  "spir- 
itual" meanings,  save  to  symboHze  that  element  of  his 
"kindred  after  the  flesh"  which  however  blindly  had  yet 
loyally  clung  to  him.  Peter's  attempt  to  solve  the  knotty 
question  of  the  standing  of  the  Jewish  element  in  the  larger 
"Israel  of  God"  we  know  had  not  been  attended  with  signal 
success. 

Considering  the  relation  in  which  the  Beloved  disciple  is 
made  to  stand  to  Peter  in  these  three  instances  of  his  appear- 
ance on  the  scene  we  can  hardly  dispute  those  students  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel,  both  ancient  and  modern,  who  see  in  it 
a  subtle  correction  of  the  Petrine  story,  and  understand  the 
figure  of  the  Beloved  disciple  to  be  introduced  in  connection 

1  Mk.  6:  52;  7:18;  8:17-21,  etc. 


304  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

with  this  purpose,  to  rectify  what  had  been  misunderstood. 
The  Beloved  disciple  speaks  from  "the  heart  of  Christ,"  and 
sees  things  as  they  really  are;  on  this  point  opponents  and 
defenders  of  the  traditional  authorship  are  at  one.  The 
question  in  debate  will  be.  What  kind  of  correction  is  aimed 
at  ?  Is  it  external  fact,  or  internal  significance  ?  Does  the 
author  aim  to  present  a  new  and  more  historically  correct 
account  than  Mark's  of  the  events  experienced  in  common 
during  the  period  of  the  ministry,  supplementing  its  defi- 
ciencies, restoring  its  unhistorical  "order,"  and  tacitly  cor- 
recting its  misstatements?  Or  is  his  aim  doctrinal  rather 
than  historical,  his  effort  the  "bringing  out  "  of  the  "spiritual" 
side  rather  than  the  concrete,  his  "eye-witness,"  in  short, 
that  of  the  eye  which  has  been  "spiritually"  enlightened 
(Eph.  I  :i8)  ?  And  if  the  latter  be  the  case,  is  such  a  design, 
so  carried  out  as  we  find  it,  attributable  to  the  son  of  Zebedee  ? 
To  writers  who  approach  the  question  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  Reverend  F,  W.  Worsley  of  Durham,  whose  recent 
work  on  The  Fourth  Gospel  and  the  Synoptists  awakens  ex- 
pectations by  its  title, ^  these  questions  answer  themselves. 
Supplementation  and  coirection  at  a  few  necessary  points  of 
the  substantially  historical  narrative  of  Mark  was  all  the 
fourth  evangelist  aimed  at. 

"His  plan  was  not  concerned  with  any  theological  or  Christo- 
logical  opinion,  which  were  rather  natural  views  of  one  who  was 
under  the  influence  of  a  closer  contact  with  the  Person  of  Christ 
than  any  of  the  Synoptists."^ 

On  this  conception  of  the  task  of  the  fourth  evangelist,  which 
is  so  remarkably  convenient  for  the  critical  historian  of  the 
twentieth  century,  however  foreign  to  the  ideals  of  the  second, 
we  will  merely  recommend  a  more  careful  reading  of  the 
works  of  Drummond  and  Scott;  for  Mr.  Worsley  professes 

1  Edinburgh,  T.  &  T.  Clark,  1909.  ^  Op.  cit.,  p.  29. 


THE  BELOVED  DISCIPLE  305 

high  regard  for  these  scholars  in  spite  of  their  leanings  to 
criticism.  We  may  then  turn  at  once  to  the  main  argument 
on  which  his  assertions  are  based : 

"We  have  one  plain  and  definite  claim  put  forward  by  the 
writer  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  'And  he  that  hath  seen  hath  borne 
witness,  and  his  witness  is  true:  and  he  knoweth  that  he  saith  true, 
that  ye  also  may  believe'  (19:35);  and  again,  'This  is  the  disciple 
which  beareth  witness  of  these  things  and  wrote  these  things:  and 
we  know  that  his  witness  is  true'  (21:  24). 

"Are  we  to  suppose  that  he  is  a  Har?"  ^ 

The  Bible  Society  prints  the  Appendix  as  an  integral  part  of 
the  Gospel,  therefore  it  was  written  by  "the  writer  of  the 
Gospel."  Therefore  that  waiter  was  the  Beloved  disciple; 
for  he  says  so  himself,  and  w'ho  could  know  better  ?  ^ 

Reasoning  of  this  type  would  scarcely  be  worthy  our  atten- 
tion were  it  not  for  examples  in  higher  places,  such  as  the 
following : 

"The  critics  who  assert  that  the  Gospel  is  not  the  work  of  an 
eye-witness,  and  even  those  who  say  that  the  last  chapter  was  not 
written  by  the  author  of  the  whole,  wantonly  accuse  these  last 
words  of  untruth."** 

1  Ibid.,  p  28. 

2  In  Mr.  Worsley's  book  debatable  points  are  usually  covered  by  the 
phrase  "I  am  satisfied,"  or  "My  conviction  is"  or  "I  say  emphatically,"  or 
"We  feel  at  once"  or  the  like  (see  pp.  36,  38,  49,  53,  59,  61,  74,  75,  80,  8g, 
92.  96,  98,  106,  117,  129,  143,  152,  160,  163,  166,  169,  171).  This  saves  the 
reader  the  trouble  of  examining  the  evidence  and  guards  him  from  the  dan- 
ger of  a  wrong  conclusion.  In  the  cardinal  question  of  the  authorship  of  the 
Appendix  we  find  two  references  in  the  Index  which  give  the  entire  argu- 
ment of  Mr.  Worsley  on  the  question.  The  first  is  on  p.  58,  as  follows:  "I 
am  quite  satisfied  that  the  Appendix  is  the  work  of  the  author  of  the  rest  of 
the  Gospel  and  that  it  is  all  the  work  of  one  person."  The  other,  on  p.  148, 
confirms  the  reader's  faith  as  follows:  "I  can  see  no  reason  for  doubting  the 
historicity  of  this  incident.  One  thing  is  quite  certain,  and  it  is  that  the 
Appendix  is  the  work  of  the  author  of  the  other  twenty  chapters." 

3  Sanday,  Criticism,  p.  81. 

Fourth  Gospel — 20 


3o6  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

This  style  of  polemic  suggests  a  sense  of  trepidation  lest  the 
chain  of  reasoning  should  not  hold.  But  since  everything  is 
thus  made  to  hinge  upon  the  identity  of  the  writer,  not  of  the 
Appendix  alone,  but  in  particular  of  its  last  (textually  genuine) 
verse  (21 :  24),  it  becomes  necessary  to  take  this  as  our  point 
of  departure,  and  ask,  Is  the  exegesis  correct  which  thus  (in 
21:  24)  identifies  the  Beloved  disciple  with  John  the  son  of 
Zebedee  ?  Setting  aside  those  late  legends,  such  as  Jerome's  ^ 
concerning  the  aged  John  continually  reiterating  the  "new 
commandment"  of  the  Lord  "Little  children,  love  one  an- 
other," whose  source  is  obviously  no  other  than  the  X  Htera- 
ture  itself,  does  the  figure  of  the  Beloved  disciple  in  its  three 
occurrences  really  correspond  with  our  knowledge  of  John 
the  son  of  Zebedee  /row  other  sources  than  the  X  literature 
and  dependent  legends;  or  docs  the  context  and  mode  of  intro- 
duction of  the  figure  imply  another,  perhaps  an  ideal  per- 
sonage ? 

We  have  seen  that  there  are  in  the  substance  of  the  Gospel 
but  three  appearances  of  the  figure,  and  these  to  some  extent 
interrelated.  It  is  important  to  distinguish  from  these  two 
other  groups  of  passages  which  fall  outside  our  consideration 
because  they  cither  are  {a)  indefinite,  and  need  not  refer  to 
the  same,  nor  indeed  to  any  specific  individual;  or  else  ih) 
are  from  a  later  writer,  who  may  easily  have  attached  a 
different  meaning  to  the  phrase  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus 
loved." 

In  the  former  category  of  indefinite  references  are  to  be 
placed  (i)  those  of  Jn.  i  :35-42,  where  the  analogy  with  Mark 
1 :  16-20  may  well  lead  the  reader  mentally  to  introduce  the 
figures  of  James  and  John.  But  not  only  have  we  here  no 
allusion  whatever  to  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved,"  the 
phenomenon  is  not  even  connected  primarily  with  the  intro- 
duction of  this  new  personality.  Its  real  explanation  must 
1  Comm.  on  Gal.,  vi,  10. 


THE  BELOVED  DISCIPLE  307 

be  found  in  connection  with  the  general  question,  "Why  is 
there  no  mention  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  of  the  two  sons  of 
Zebedcc,  James  and  John,  the  'sons  of  thunder'" ?^a 
problem  already  discussed.' 

(2)  In  the  account  of  Peter's  Denial,  Jn.  18: 15-27,  a  syn- 
optic story  intimately  connected  with  the  Appendix  {cf.  21: 
15-19),  we  have  again  the  indeimite  mention  of  "another 
disciple  known  to  the  high-priest,"  who  procures  Peter's  ad- 
mission to  the  court  and  then  disappears.  There  is  nothing 
to  prove  that  this  was  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved";  the 
inference  is  simply  suggested  to  the  reader's  mind  in  view  of 
Mk.  14:33,  perhaps  intentionally,  as  is  almost  certainly  the 
case  in  the  Appendix.  This  problem  too  must  be  dismissed 
for  the  present.  It  will  be  treated  in  our  discussion  of  the 
editorial  revisions  which  the  Gospel  has  undergone.^ 

{b)  Unlike  the  Gospel  as  a  whole  (i)  the  Appendix  intro- 
duces openly  "the  sons  of  Zebedee"  (21:2).  A  penumbra 
of  indefmiteness  is  secured  by  the  addition  to  the  list  of  five 
mentioned  by  name  in  21 :  2,  of  "two  other  of  his  disciples," 
possibly  because  of  interest  in  the  number  seven.'*  But  given 
"the  two  sons  of  Zebedee,"  the  process  of  elimination  becomes 
so  easy  that  the  reader  cannot  really  fail  to  identify  "the 
disciple  whom  Jesus  loved,  which  also  leaned  back  on  his 
breast  at  the  supper,  and  said.  Lord,  who  is  he  that  betrayeth 
Thee?"  (Jn.  21:  20)  with  the  "witness-bearer"  who,  accord- 
ing to  the  Appendix,  "beareth  witness  of  these  things  and 
wrote  these  things"  (21:  24).  The  author  of  the  Appendix, 
accordingly,  supplies  the  missing  "sons  of  Zebedee,"  and, 
without  j)Ositively  so  stating,  leads  the  reader  to  infer  tliat  "the 

1  See  above,  p.  201  f . 

2  See  below,  Chapter  XVIII. 

3  Cf.  the  seven  in  Papias,  and  Clem.  Horn.,  xviii,  14,  the  patriarchs,  as 
"the  seven  pillars  of  the  world."  In  Gal.  2:  9,  Peter,  James  and  John  are 
"pillars"  {cf.  Rev.  3:12).  Was  the  early  Church,  like  "the  world,"  and  like 
"Wisdom's  house"  (Prov.  y:i),  conceived  as  built  on  seven  pillars? 


3o8  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

disciple  whom  Jesus  loved"  is  John,  the  survivor  of  the  two. 
But  we  have  seen  reason  to  consider  the  Appendix  the  work  of 
a  later  redactor  (R),  who  may,  or  may  not,  correctly  identify 
the  enigmatic  figure, 

A  further  passage  frequently  cited  as  if  belonging  to  the 
group  introducing  the  Beloved  Disciple  suffers  from  both 
objections:  (a)  indefiniteness  and  (b)  editorial  character.  It 
is  the  passage  on  Peter's  Denial  (Jn.  13:36-38;  18:15-18, 
25-27),  which  is  so  intimately  connected  with  the  Appendix  ^ 
as  to  make  it  reasonable  to  infer  that  the  nameless  "other 
disciple  known  to  the  high-priest"  of  this  story  (18:  10  f.)  is 
meant  to  be  understood  in  the  same  way.  The  reader  of 
chaps.  18  f.  might  well  ask.  How  is  it,  after  the  disciples  have 
"gone  their  way,"  ^  that  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved" 
can  still  be  beside  him  at  the  foot  of  the  cross,  19:  26?  The 
answer  (of  R)  is  the  introduction  in  18: 15  f.,  together  with 
his  insertion  of  the  incident  of  Peter's  Denial,  of  the  "other 
disciple  known  to  the  high-priest."  The  trait  may  have  been 
suggested  by  the  following  of  the  "young  man"  (usually 
identified  as  John  surnamed  Mark)  of  Mk.  14:51  f.  Other 
reasons  concur  to  prove  this  whole  story  of  Peter's  Denial  an 
interpolation  by  R.^  Were  it  part  of  the  original  stock,  whose 
interpreter  of  events  is  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved,"  we 
should  expect  this  title,  and  not  the  indefinite  "another 
disciple  known  to  the  high-priest." 

Deferring  the  consideration  of  the  "other  disciple"  of  Jn. 
18: 1 5,"*  we  may  therefore  say  as  regards  the  "Beloved  disciple  " 
that  the  editor  (R)  who  commends  the  Gospel  to  the  reader 

1  On  this  story  as  an  insertion,  along  with  other  material  related  to  Synoptic 
tradition  by  the  author  of  the  Appendix,  see  Bacon,  Introd.  to  N.  T.  Lit., 
p.  274. 

2  John  18:  8  f.,  the  Johannine  euphemism  for  the  desertion  of  the  eleven, 
Mk.  14:  27,  50;  Lk.  omits. 

•*  Bacon,  Introd.  to  N.  T.,  p.  274  (1900). 
4  See  Chapter  XVIII. 


THE  BELOVED  DISCIPLE  309 

in  21:  24  wishes  at  least  the  latter,  if  not  the  former  also,  to 
be  identified  with  the  son  of  Zebedee. 

(2)  Whatever  be  the  derivation  in  whole  or  in  part  of  Jn. 
19:31-37,  the  famous  crux  of  19:35  cannot  be  fairly  inter- 
preted without  taking  into  consideration  its  manifest  relation 
to  21:  24.  The  phraseology  alone  would  com{)el  us  here  to 
recognize  the  hand  of  R.  Once  more  we  fmd  the  indefinite 
"He  that  saw  it"  (6  ewpa^w?)  brought  into  the  same  myste- 
rious relation  with  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved"  as  in  the 
Appendix.  The  writer  will  not  say  in  so  many  words,  "This 
was  the  'disciple  whom  Jesus  loved';"  still  less  "This 
was  John  the  son  of  Zebedee,"  but  he  makes  it  impossible  to 
think  of  anyone  else.  Phraseology,  interest  in  authentication, 
method  pursued,  are  those  of  R.  We  have  no  alternative  but 
to  class  Jn.  19:  35  also  with  the  references  which  are  both  (a) 
indefinite  and  (b)  redactional.  It  is  R  who  speaks,  and  his 
intention  is  that  the  witness  of  the  "blood  and  water"  from 
Jesus'  side  shall  be  taken  to  be  no  other  than  "the  disciple 
whom  Jesus  loved"  of  verse  26,  Whether  he  also  means 
that  this  disciple  shall  be  identified  with  the  author  of  I  Jn. 
and  III  Jn.  depends  upon  our  judgment  of  the  relation  of 
Jn.  19: 34  f.  to  I  Jn.  5 :  6-9  and  III  Jn.  12.  The  reference  in 
iK€ivo<;  olSev  would  seem  to  be  to  the  emphatic  "witness" 
of  I  Jn.  5 :  6-9.  In  that  case  R  will  be  not  only  asserting  his 
conviction  that  the  phenomenon  of  the  blood  and  water  was 
witnessed  by  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved"  (in  his  view 
John),  but  in  addition  that  it  is  the  same  who,  in  the  Epistles 
whose  language  he  borrows,  had  laid  such  stress  upon  the 
"water  and  blood,"  declaring  this  to  be  a  "witness  of  the 
Spirit"  in  some  sense  present  and  eternal.  R's  slandjjoint, 
in  other  words,  is  identically  that  of  subsequent  tradition, 
except  that  instead  of  plain  statement  he  shelters  himself  be- 
hind purposed  ambiguity. 

To  test  the  value  of  R's  answer  to  the  question:  Who  is 


3IO  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

meant  by  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved"?  we  must  now 
return  to  the  three  unequivocal  entries  of  this  figure  upon  the 
stage,  and  ask  ourselves  what  their  significance  is  in  the  light 
of  the  original  context.  We  may  distinguish  between  the 
general  context  of  the  writing  as  a  whole,  and  the  individual 
context  of  each  of  the  three  entries,  considering  the  latter  first. 

I.  Jn.  13 : 1-30,  The  extraordinary  character  of  the  Johan- 
nine  story  of  the  Last  Supper  is  quite  inadequately  stated 
when  it  is  simply  pointed  out  that  it  is  not  the  Passover;  that 
it  has  not  the  institution  of  the  Eucharist,  which  this  Evan- 
gelist, on  the  contrary,  connects  with  the  Feeding  of  the 
Multitude  (Jn.  6),  a  narrative  of  the  Agape  cycle;  and  that 
it  completely  ccUpses  the  Eucharist  by  the  emphasis  laid  upon 
the  new  rite  of  foot-washing,  which  Jesus  institutes  in  per- 
petuity (ver.  15),  as  his  own  complement  to  the  rite  of  bap- 
tism (ver.  10).  All  this  is  surprising  enough  when  we  reflect 
what  significance  already  attached,  even  in  Paul's  time,  to 
the  story  of  the  sacrament  instituted  by  Jesus  on  "  that  same 
night  in  which  he  was  betrayed"  (I  Cor.  11 :  20,  23  ff.).  But 
it  is  not  the  whole  truth.  In  Jn.  13: 1-30  the  supper  is  not  a 
Passover,  and  not  a  Eucharist.  There  is  a  sacrament,  with 
the  bread  and  the  cup  after  supper.  But  it  is  a  sacrament 
for  only  one  of  those  present — "the  son  of  perdition,"  and 
for  him  it  is  a  sacrament  of  judgment!  By  it  "Satan  entered 
into  him."  ^ 

There  is  no  need  to  exaggerate.  The  phenomenon  has  not 
so  startling  an  effect  as  it  would  have  if  this  were  new  material 
introduced  by  the  fourth  evangelist  de  suo,  instead  of  being  a 
mere  retention  of  the  synoptic  trait  of  the  Betrayer  whose 
"hand  dipped  with  his  Master  in  the  dish"  (Mt.  26:  21-25  = 
Mk.  i4:i8-2i=Lk.  22:21-23).  It  is  significant  enough  as 
being  the  only  trait  which  the  fourth  evangelist  sees  fit  to  pre- 

1  On  the  fourth  evangelist's  treatment  of  the  Eucharist  and  Agape  nar- 
ratives see  the  chapter  below  entitled  "  Johannine  Quartodecimanism." 


THE  BELOVED  DISCIPLE  311 

scn-c  from  the  slory  of  the  Lord's  Supper.  The  remo\al  of 
the  institutional  teachings  to  a  connection  with  the  story  of 
the  origin  of  the  Agape  in  6:  52-58,  the  removal  of  connection 
with  the  Passover,  and  the  substitution  of  the  rite  of  foot- 
washing  for  the  Eucharist  have  their  explanation,  no  doubt, 
in  the  Evangelist's  own  view  of  these  rites,  and  of  their  re- 
lation to  Judaism  on  the  one  side.  Gnosticism  on  the  other. 
This  particular  trait,  retained  alone  from  the  synoptic  story 
of  the  Supper,  may  be  partly  explained  by  the  desire  to 
counteract  a  false  value  attached  by  some  to  the  Eucharist. 
Its  full  significance,  however,  cannot  be  appreciated  without 
a  survey  of  all  the  passages  in  which  the  fourth  evangelist 
takes  up  and  restates  the  facts  related  by  the  Synoptists  con- 
cerning Judas  and  his  betrayal  of  the  Lord,  The  apologetic 
intention  thus  becomes  unmistakable.  The  taunt  is  to  be 
met  and  overcome  that  the  pretended  Son  of  God,  who 
"knew  all  men,  and  .  .  .  needed  not  that  anyone  should 
bear  witness  concerning  man;  for  he  himself  knew  what  was 
in  man,"  had  not  been  able  to  foresee  or  guard  against  be- 
trayal by  one  of  his  own  chosen  circle  of  disciples. 

The  first  mention  of  the  betrayer  occurs  in  6 :  70,  where  it 
takes  the  place  of  Mark's  account  of  the  rebuke  to  Peter  for 
rejecting  the  declaration  of  Messiah's  fate, 

"Get  thee  behind  me  Satan,  for  thou  mindest  not  the  things  of 
God,  but  the  things  of  men."  ^ 

In  the  Fourth  Gospel  it  is  declared  that  this  reproach  was 
addressed  not  to  Simon,  but  to 

"Judas  the  son  of  Simon,  Iscariot;  for  he  it  was  that  should 
betray  him,  being  one  of  the  twelve."  - 

Moreover  Jesus  had  intended  jroni  the  beginning  that  events 
should  take  this  course,  and  made  the  utterance  with  express 
reference  to  it : 

iMk.  8:33.  2  Jn.  6:71. 


312  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

"Did  not  I  choose  you  the  twelve,  and  one  of  you  is  a  devil?"  ^ 

The  Evangelist  even  inserts  in  the  context  the  explanation : 

"For  Jesus  knew  from  the  beginning  who  they  were  that  be- 
lieved not,  and  who  it  was  that  should  betray  him."  ^ 

This  is  certainly  an  important  "correction  of  the  Synoptists," 
especially  as  it  is  one  of  a  connected  series,  all  made  in  the  in- 
terest of  showing  that  Jesus  intended  his  death  to  happen  just 
as  it  did,  and  even  impelled  the  unwilling  actors  to  do  their  part. 
In  fact  so  far  from  "being  in  an  agony"  and  praying  for  deliv- 
erance from  "that  hour"  as  reported  in  Mk.  14:  32-36,  when 
the  critical  choice  is  put  before  him  of  going  to  the  Greeks  and 
teaching  them,  Jesus  deHberately  chooses  rather  the  way  of 
the  cross  as  a  better  means  of  "drawing  all  men."  He  re- 
fuses  to  pray,  "Father,  save  me  from  this  hour,"  because  "for 
this  cause  came  I  unto  this  hour."  His  prayer  becomes, 
therefore,  "Father,  glorify  thy  name,"  which  brings  from 
heaven  the  audible  reply:  "I  have  both  glorified  it  and  will 
glorify  it  again,"  and  some  interpreted  this  as  "an  angel 
speaking  to  him."  This  further  "correction"  of  the  Synop- 
tists' story  of  the  agony  in  Gethsemane  and  the  strengthening 
angel  is  also  highly  significant.  It  requires,  however,  an 
unusual  standard  to  perceive  in  it  "the  testimony  of  an  eye- 
witness" replacing  the  inaccuracies  of  secondary  narrators  by 
a  more  historical  version  of  events.^ 

We  come  then  to  the  incident  of  the  Supper,  when,  as  Mark 
had  related,  Jesus  had  intimated,  though  vaguely  and  ambigu- 
ously, his  foreknowledge  of  the  impending  betrayal: 

"  One  of  you  shall  betray  me,  even  he  that  eateth  with  me."  '* 

Matthew  had  improved  upon  the  indefinite  indication  of  Mark 
by  adding  in  particular  that 

1  Jn.  6:  70.  3  With  Lk.  22  cf.  Jn.  12:  20-36. 

2  Jn.  6:  64.  4  Mk.  14:  18. 


THE  BELOVED  DISCIPLE  313 

"  Judas  which  betrayed  him  answered  and  said,  Is  it  I  (who  am 
to  betray  thee),  Rabbi  ?    He  saith  unto  him,  Thou  hast  said."  ^ 

But  even  this  did  not  make  the  forcknowLdgc  and  intention 
of  Jesus  quite  undeniable.  There  must  be  an  "eye-witness" 
who  could  testify  to  Jesus'  inmost  intention.  The  fourth 
evangelist  elaborates  the  scene  with  a  minuteness  of  detail 
which  leaves  not  the  smallest  loophole  of  escape.  Satan's 
"entering  into  Judas  Iscariot"  of  which  Luke  had  told 
(Lk.  22:3)  was  an  immediate  consequence  of  receiving  the 
sop  which  Jesus  "dipped  in  the  dish."  '  Peter  and  the  rest 
** doubted  of  whom  Jesus  spake."  Even  when  the  signal  had 
been  given  privately  to  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved," 

"No  man  at  the  table  knew  for  what  intent  Jesus  spake  this 
unto  him  (the  command  to  Judas,  That  thou  doest  do  quickly)"; 

for  only  one  who  both  understood  the  true  intention  of  the 
Lord,  and  also  so  completely  sympathized  with  it  as  to  be  un- 
willing even  to  interpose  an  obstacle  to  the  nefarious  work  0}  the 
betrayer,  could  look  calmly  on  and  say  no  word.^ 

Finally  to  complete  this  particular  line  of  "correction  of 
the  Synoptists"  Judas  appears  at  the  scene  of  the  betrayal 
accompanied  not  by  a  paltry  posse  of  slaves  from  the  high 
priest's  house,  but  by  the  entire  Roman  garrison  of  Jerusalem 
(tj  a-Treipa — 600  men)  headed  by  the  miHtary  tribune  him- 
self (6  'x^iXiap-)(^o<i)  and  accompanied  by  "the  officers  of  the 
Jews."  Judas  has  no  need  to  "betray  the  Son  of  man  with  a 
kiss,"  so  that  here  the  appearance  of  verisimiUtude  in  Synop- 
tic story  is  fallacious.    On  the  contrary  Jesus  himself, 

"knowing  all  things  that  were  coming  upon  him  went  forth  and 
said  unto  them,  Whom  seek  ye?     They  answered  him,  Jesus  of 

1  Mt.  26:  25. 

2  C'f.  Mk.  14:  20,  "He  that  dippeth  with  me  in  the  dish,"  i.  e.  (proverbially) 
my  trusted  friend. 

3  Jn.  13:  21-30. 


314  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Nazareth.  Jesus  saith  unto  them,  I  am  he.  And  Judas  also, 
which  betrayed  him,  was  standing  with  them.  When  therefore  he 
said  unto  them  (the  mihtary  tribune,  cohort  and  officers  of  the 
Jews),  I  am  he,  they  went  backward  and  fell  to  the  ground.  Again 
therefore  he  asked  them.  Whom  seek  ye?  And  they  said,  Jesus 
of  Nazareth.  Jesus  answered,  I  told  you  that  I  am  he.  If  there- 
fore ye  seek  me,  let  these  (disciples)  go  their  way;  that  the  word 
might  be  fulfilled  which  he  had  spoken  (in  the  high  priestly 
prayer  17 :  12),  Of  those  whom  thou  hast  given  me  I  lost  not  one."  ^ 

As  a  vindication  of  the  disciples  from  Mark's  admission  that 
at  the  approach  of  the  posse  of  slaves  "they  all  forsook  him 
and  fled"  this  is  far  more  complete  than  Luke's  bald  cancel- 
ation of  the  trait.  As  a  vindication  of  the  incarnate  Logos 
from  the  appearance  of  having  been  overtaken  by  a  fate  he 
had  vainly  sought  to  avoid,  it  leaves  nothing  to  be  desired — 
save  credibility. 

As  regards  motive  and  intention  this  first  introduction  of 
"the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved"  stands  in  Une  with  all  the 
previous  references  to  the  betrayal  by  Judas,  and  exempUfies 
both  the  interest  of  the  evangelist  himself  in  his  corrections  of 
Synoptic  tradition  and  the  function  of  the  Beloved  disciple. 

It  is  not  merely,  however,  in  the  apologetic  interest  that  this 
figure  is  introduced.  In  order  to  do  complete  justice  to  the 
role  it  plays  even  in  this  first  appearance  we  must  consider 
further  tv^o  passages  which  connect  themselves  w^ith  the  par- 
ticular scene  of  the  Supper  and  its  contrasting  figures  of  the 
Betrayer  and  the  Beloved  disciple.  They  are  (i)  The  Evan- 
gelist's own  teachings  regarding  the  sacrament  in  6:  52-71; 
(2)  the  teaching  of  Paul  in  I  Corinthians  11 :  29  f.  concerning 
that  eating  of  the  bread  and  drinking  of  the  cup  unworthily, 
which  becomes  a  sacrament  of  judgment  and  death  to  those 
that  "discern  not  the  Lord's  body." 

(i)  As  regards  the  evangelist's  view  of  the  sacrament  ex- 

1  Jn.  18:  4-9. 


THE  BELOVED  DISCIPLE  315 

pressed  in  the  chapter  on  the  Agap^  ( Jn.  6.)  I  cannot  do  better 
than  transcribe  the  excellent  exposition  of  Mr.  E.  F.  Scott. ^ 

"The  discourse  in  this  chapter  (Jn.  6)  is  based  on  the  preceding 
miracle,  which,  in  accordance  with  John's  method,  becomes  the 
symbolical  expression  of  a  permanent  religious  fact.  Christ  dis- 
penses to  the  world  the  bread  of  life.  He  has  in  Himself  an  ine.x- 
haustible  divine  life  which  He  imparts  from  age  to  age  to  those 
who  beheve  on  Him.  How  is  this  life  communicated?  It  might 
appear  from  the  earlier  portion  of  the  discourse  as  if  the  process 
were  conceived  as  wholly  spiritual.  Jesus  demands  a  true  belief 
on  Himself  as  the  revelation  of  God,  a  living  communion  with 
Him,  an  assimilation  of  our  nature  to  His.  But  this  spiritual 
process  is  associated,  more  and  more  definitely  as  the  chapter 
draws  to  a  close,  with  the  ordinance  of  the  Eucharist:  'The  bread 
that  I  will  give  is  My  flesh,  which  I  give  for  the  life  of  the  world' 
(6:  51).  '  Except  ye  eat  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  Man  and  drink  His 
blood,  ye  have  no  life  in  you'  (53).  '  He  that  eateth  My  flesh  and 
drinketh  My  blood,  dwelleth  in  Me,  and  I  in  him'  (56).  In  say- 
ings like  these  we  have  direct  allusion  to  the  Eucharist  as  the 
'medicine  of  immortahty'  (Ignat.  Eph.  20),  the  means  of  fellow- 
ship between  Christ  and  the  believer,  the  real  appropriation  of 
the  body  and  blood  of  the  Lord. 

"  In  this  chapter,  therefore,  we  seem  to  have  two  views  wholly 
contradictory  to  each  other.  The  imparting  of  the  bread  of  Hfe, 
typified  in  the  miracle,  is  the  communication  by  Jesus  of  His  own 
mind  and  spirit  to  His  disciples.  It  is  also  identified  in  a  special 
manner  with  the  outward  rite  of  the  Eucharist.  The  contradic- 
tion is  partly  to  be  explained  as  an  instance  of  John's  peculiar 
method.  He  does  not  discard  the  common  beliefs,  even  when 
they  clash  with  his  own,  but  accepts  them  formally  in  order  to 
interpret  and  spiritualize  them.  In  the  present  instance  he  takes 
the  popular  conception  of  the  rehgious  value  of  the  Supper,  and 
sets  it  in  the  light  of  a  higher  and  more  reasonable  conception. 
The  outward  ordinance  becomes  symbolical  of  the  true  communion 
with  Christ  by  a  life  of  faith  and  obedience.    To  'eat  His  flesh 

1  The  Fourth  Gospel,  its  Purpose  and  Theology.    E.  F.  Scott,  1906,  p.  123. 


3i6  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

and  drink  His  blood'  is  to  appropriate  His  Spirit,  to  make  yourself 
one  with  Him,  so  that  He  seems  to  live  again  in  His  disciple. 
John  himself  points  us  to  some  such  symbolical  import  in  his 
words,  by  the  warning  with  which  the  discourse  closes:  'It  is  the 
spirit  that  quickeneth,  the  flesh  profiteth  nothing'  (6:  63)." 

(2)  To  this  strong  reaction  against  the  popular,  crudely 
superstitious,  and  non-ethical  view  of  the  sacrament  as  a 
"medicine  of  immortahty,"  the  evangelist  joins,  however,  as 
Scott  correctly  observes,  a  mysticism  of  his  own,  producing  a 
conception  not  wholly  freed  from  the  magical  element,  but 
certainly  able  to  plead  even  in  this  respect  the  great  authority 
of  Paul  (I  Cor,  11:  29  f.).  The  sacrament  is  the  means  by 
which  one  appropriates  Christ's  spirit,  by  which  one's  life  is 
fed  by  the  divine  Hfe  of  the  Logos.  Because  this  is  something 
more  than  an  ethical  participation,  unworthy  eating  has  not 
merely  moral  but  physical  consequences.  The  open  channel 
of  divine  grace  becomes  the  opportunity  of  Satan,  to  the 
judgment  and  death  of  the  unworthy  participant.  The  Com- 
munion of  the  Lord's  body  and  blood  has  its  awful  counter- 
part in  a  "communion  with  devils"  (I  Cor.  10:  14-22).  This 
Pauline  doctrine  of  the  sacrament  of  judgment  is  embodied  by 
our  evangelist  in  his  story  of  the  Designation  of  the  Traitor, 
the  sole  feature  he  thinks  it  \vorth  his  while  to  retain  from  the 
synoptic  account  of  the  Supper.  "The  disciple  whom  Jesus 
loved  "  is  made  the  hicrophant  of  this  mystery.  The  question 
vainly  put  by  the  twelve  in  the  synoptic  story  "which  of  them 
it  was  that  should  do  this  thing,"  is  answered  to  this  confidant 
of  Jesus'  bosom,  who  is  given  to  understand  its  working.  It 
is  at  the  sohcitation  of  Peter  that  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus 
loved"  obtains  the  explanation;  but  it  docs  not  appear  when, 
if  ever,  Peter  was  told  the  result.  Doctrinally,  therefore,  the 
teaching  our  evangelist  finds  in  the  synoptic  story  of  Judas 
"dipping  in  the  dish"  with  Jesus  at  the  last  Supper  is  ex- 
pressed in  I  Cor.  10:  20-22,  "I  would  not  that  ye  should  have 


THE  BELOVED  DISCIPLE  317 

communion  with  devils.  Yc  cannot  drink  the  cup  of  the  Lord 
and  the  cuj)  of  devils;  ye  cannot  i)artake  of  tlie  table  of  the 
Lord  and  the  table  of  devils."  He  intimates  that  it  is  possible 
for  a  Judas  to  make  even  of  the  Lord's  Supper  a  sacrament  of 
damnation. 

It  should  be  needless  to  say  that  this  is  not  history,  but 
doctrinal  interpretation.  No  discij^le  of  tlesh  and  blood  could 
ha\e  received  the  positive  assurance  of  the  traitorous  j)urj)ose 
entertained  by  Judas,  and  permitted  the  traitor  to  walk  forth 
before  his  eyes  to  its  accomplishment,  without  lifting  a  fmger 
to  prevent  it.  But  the  disciple  of  Jn.  13:  23-30  is  not  a  dis- 
ciple of  flesh  and  blood.  He  is  the  interpreter  of  the  "Pc- 
trine"  story  of  the  announcement  of  the  betrayal.  And  he  in- 
terprets it  on  the  basis  of  the  Pauline  doctrine  of  the  sacra- 
ment of  judgment. 

2.  We  may  pass  now  to  the  second  context  in  which  the 
Beloved  disciple  appears. 

Jn.  19:  25-27  deals  with  the  synoptic  scene  of  the  Women 
at  the  Cross,  Mt.  27:55  f.  =  Mk.  15:41  f.  =  Lk.  23:49. 
Among  these  the  fourth  evangehst  introduces  the  mother  of 
Jesus,  whose  presence,  in  view  of  the  silence  of  the  Synoptics 
and  the  statements  of  Mk.  3:21,  31  tT.,  is  somewhat  sur- 
prising. That  of  a  disciple  is  even  more  surprising,  in  view  of 
the  desertion  of  all  which  forms  so  conspicuous  an  element  of 
the  earlier  tradition.  The  entire  Johannine  scene,  so  con- 
trary even  to  the  representation  of  Luke,  where  the  women 
themselves  "stood  afar  off,  beholding"  (John  19:  25,  "stood 
by  the  cross"),  and  to  the  historical  presuppositions  of  an  exe- 
cution of  this  character,  suggests  that  here  too  it  is  not  a  flesh 
and  blood  disciple,  nor  a  flesh  and  blood  mother,  that  enters 
upon  the  scene.  This  mother  rather,  as  we  have  seen,  is  she 
of  whom  Jesus  speaks  in  Luke  11 :  27  f.,  "they  that  hear  the 
word  of  God  and  keej)  it " ;  perhaj)s  in  a  narrower  sense  the  rep- 
resentative of  the  adherents  of  an  older  faith  which  had  not 


3i8  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

known  the  day  of  its  visitation,  finding  a  home  with  that 
younger  ecclesia  which  took  its  start  from  the  cross  as  the 
essence  and  substance  of  the  gospel.^  The  author  of  John 
12:20-32  cannot  have  been  less  catholic  than  Paul  in  inter- 
preting the  significance  of  the  cross.  The  adaptation  which  he 
makes,  in  19:  25-27,  of  the  synoptic  scene  of  the  Women  at 
the  Cross  suggests,  therefore,  in  a  writer  admittedly  devoted 
to  symbohsm,  a  Pauline  interest  in  those  who  were  Jesus' 
"kindred  according  to  the  flesh,"  and  probably  were  his  own 
as  well.  Like  Paul,  he  finds  in  the  doctrine  of  the  cross  the 
reconciUation  of  Jew  and  Gentile ;  ^  he  too  expects  such  a 
dwelling  of  Shem  in  the  tents  of  Japheth  as  Paul  foresees 
(Rom.  11:13-32).  But  here  again  the  hierophant  of  the 
"ministration  of  the  Gentiles"  is  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus 
loved." 

(3)  The  third  instance  of  introduction  of  this  personahty  is 
that  of  Jn.  20.  This  chapter  contains  the  fourth  evangehst's 
only  narratives  of  the  Resurrection  and  the  Great  Commis- 
sion. That  of  the  Appendix  (21 :  i  ff.)  we  have  seen  to  be  the 
work  of  a  later  hand.  For  R's  story  of  a  return  of  seven  of  the 
disciples  to  their  fishing  in  GaUlee  is  clearly  out  of  harmony 
with  the  preceding  account  of  their  receiving  the  Great  Com- 
mission in  Jerusalem  (20:  21-31).  Wellhausen  ^  has  even 
serious  objections  to  urge  against  the  originaUty  of  20:  24-29 
also,  because  it  introduces  Thomas  as  an  absentee  on  that 
supreme  occasion.  Whatever  the  cogency  or  the  inadequacy 
of  this  latter  plea,  the  whole  content  of  the  resurrection  story 
as  related  by  the  synoptic  writers,  from  their  account  of  the 

1  Cf.  the  taking  refuge  by  the  mother  of  Messiah  in  Rev.  12:  6  "in  the 
wilderness,  where  she  hath  a  place  prepared  of  God,  that  there  they  may 
nourish  her  a  thousand  two  hundred  and  threescore  days,"  perhaps  referring 
to  the  flight  of  the  church  to  Pella  from  Jerusalem. 

2  Eph.  2:16-18. 

3  On  the  structural  analysis  of  Wellhausen  see  his  Erweiterungen  u. 
Aenderungen  im  Vierten  Evangelium,  1907,  and  below,  Chapter  XVIII. 


THE  BELOVED  DISCIPLE  319 

empty  tomb  to  the  Great  Commission  and  the  Pentecostal 
endowment  with  the  Spirit,  is  covered  by  our  evangelist  in 
three  scenes,  the  Empty  Tomb  (20:  i-io),  the  Appearance  to 
Mary  Magdalen  (20:  11-18),  and  the  Mission  of  the  Twelve 
(20:  19-23). 

The  first  at  the  tomb,  the  first  to  bcUcve,  was  "the  disciple 
whom  Jesus  loved."  He  appears  as  a  kind  of  invisible  com- 
{)anion  of  Peter  in  the  hurried  visit  to  the  tomb  borrowed  from 
Luke  24:  12.^  Neither  of  the  two  speaks  to,  nor  appears  to 
notice,  his  companion.  The  new-found  faith  of  "the  disciple 
whom  Jesus  loved  "  does  not  express  itself  to  Mary  Magdalen, 
who  is  left  "standing  without,  weeping";  nor  even  to  any  of 
the  disciples.  His  coming  and  seeing  the  empty  tomb  and 
believing,  is  all  an  episode  introduced  into  the  Lucan  story  of 
the  women  at  the  sepulcher  without  the  faintest  trace  of  an 
effect  upon  the  course  of  the  narrative.  Again  we  must  say  ** 
this  is  no  disciple  of  flesh  and  blood.  All  is  precisely  as  if  he 
were  not  there.  His  function  indeed  has  no  regard  for  the 
persons  and  conditions  of  that  age.  The  empty  tomb  was 
enough  for  him.  "He  saw  and  believed."  He  is  the  type  of 
that  faith  which  docs  not  wait  for  ocular  demonstration,  but  is 
quickened  to  full  life  by  "knowing  the  Scripture  that  he  must 
rise  from  the  dead  "  (ver.  9). 

In  the  light  of  these  three  individual  contexts  is  it  a  son  of 
Zebedee,  even  a  glorified  son  of  Zebedee,  that  tlie  original 
author  intends  to  present  under  the  mask  of  "the  disciple 
whom  Jesus  loved  "  ?  Is  it  both  this  and  his  own  personality  ? 
If  so,  he  uses  a  strange  title,-  and  has  a  strange  way  of  de- 
scribing his   hero.     We  are  told  that  it  is  modesty  which 

1  The  verse  is  omitted  in  some  MSS.,  but  the  incident  is  referred  to  in 
24:  24,  which  appears  in  all. 

2  Zahn  seriously  considers  the  possibility  of  accounting  for  the  title  on  the 
basis  of  the  legend  in  the  Leucian  Acts  of  John,  where  John  is  the  ivapdivoi 
of  Rev.  14:  4,  prevented  from  accomplishing  his  intended  marriage  in  order 
to  be  reserved  for  Christ.    This  is  inverting  cause  and  effect. 


320  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

accounts  for  this;  the  author  shrinks  from  introducing  him- 
self by  name.  Strange  modesty,  which  prefers  a  title  of 
extreme  and  exclusive  honor  to  the  simple  pronoun,  and 
which  introduces  the  personality  only  to  place  it  in  contrast 
with  the  weakness  and  bhndness  of  the  rest  of  the  Twelve! 
We  are  told  that  this  veiled  introduction  of  "the  disciple 
whom  Jesus  loved "  is  one  of  the  "touches  of  the  eye-witness." 
And  yet  of  all  the  unreal  scenes  of  this  gospel  of  abstractions 
none  is  so  unreal,  none  of  the  dramatis  personcB  so  phan- 
tasmal, as  the  Beloved  disciple  himself,  and  the  symbolic 
adaptations  of  synoptic  scenes  in  which  he  figures. 

Let  us  then  turn  from  that  interpretation  of  this  veiled 
figure  which  R  has  imposed  on  later  tradition  by  his  interpo- 
lations in  and  additions  to  the  Gospel,  and  frame  for  our- 
selves an  interpretation  on  the  basis  of  the  broader  context 
of  the  original  work  viewed  as  a  whole. 

The  view  many  times  advanced  since  Scholten  that  the 
Beloved  disciple  is  a  purely  ideal  figure  is  surely  more  in 
accord  with  the  nature  ol  Tiis  entry  on  the  scene  in  the  three 
individual  contexts  just  discussed,  than  that  which  R  has 
imposed  on  all  subsequent  traditional  interpretation.  In 
some  sense  he  is  an  ideal  figure,  that  ideal  disciple  whom 
Jesus  would  choose,  and  who  reads  his  soul  aright.  What, 
then,  is  ideal  discipleship  in  the  fourth  evangeUst's  concep- 
tion? What  message  will  he  be  supposed  to  obtain,  who 
reads  the  very  soul  of  Jesus?  To  these  questions  "the  spirit- 
ual Gospel"  leaves  room  for  but  one  answer.  Rarely  has  it 
been  better  stated  than  in  the  work  of  Mr.  Scott.  The 
essence  of  the  gospel  of  Christ  for  our  evangelist  centers  in 
the  great  word  "fife."  He  makes  himself  the  great  vindi- 
cator of  Paul,  for  whom  the  redemption  had  been  simply 
"the  law  of  the  Spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus  making  me  free 
from  the  law  of  sin  and  death."  To  the  fourth  evangehst, 
as  to  Paul,  the  gospel  is  not  precept,  but  personality  and 


THE  BELOVED  DISCIPLE  321 

power;  "the  Spirit  of  him  that  raised  up  Jesus  from  the 
dead  dweUing  in  you."  The  cardinal  ideas  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  are  defined  in  the  conclusion  of  the  volume  wc  have 
quoted  in  three  fundamental  principles: 

"  (i)  Jesus  Christ  in  his  actual  Person  is  the  revelation  of  God. 
(2)  The  peculiar  work  of  Jesus  was  to  impart  Life.  (3)  The  life 
is  communicated  through  union  with  Christ.  It  was  inherent  in 
His  own  Person,  and  before  it  can  reappear  in  His  disciples  they 
must  become  in  some  sense  identified  with  Himself."  ^ 

From  these  cardinal  principles  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  it  should 
be  possible  to  deduce  the  evangcHst's  conception  of  the  ideal 
disciple. 

In  one  sense  he  must  needs  correspond  to  the  author  him- 
self, whose  insight  into  the  deeper  meaning  of  the  gospel  is 
the  occasion  of  his  writing.  With  all  those  who  have  not  seen 
and  yet  have  beheved,  the  gospel  has  come  to  our  evangelist 
through  union  with  the  eternal  Christ,  the  Logos  of  God. 
He  is  of  those  who,  with  the  great  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles,  if 
they  had  known  a  Christ  after  the  flesh  would  know  such  a 
Christ  no  more.  He  has  apprehended  him  sub  specie  eterni- 
iaiis,  and  abides  in  his  bosom,  as  the  glorified  Redeemer 
himself  abides  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father.  In  the  sacrament, 
at  the  cross,  in  the  resurrection,  he  has  "put  on  Christ,"  and 
in  him  has  appropriated  the  eternal  hfe  of  God.  The  ideal 
disciple  cannot  be  less.  He  must  be  an  interpreter  of  the 
evangelic  tradition  of  Peter  in  the  deeper,  larger  sense. 

But  we  should  be  doing  scant  justice  to  the  fourth  evange- 
Ust  if  we  proceeded  at  once  to  identify  his  typical  disciple  with 
any  one  individual,  whether  himself,  or  Paul,  or  John,  or 
some  less  known  figure  of  the  past.  This  is  not  his  method. 
His  Nicodemus  combines  traits  from  the  rich  ruler  of  Lk. 
18:18,  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  Lk.  23:  50  IT.,  and  Gamaliel, 

1  E.  F.  Scott,  The  Fourth  Gospel,  p.  360  ff. 
Fourth  Gospel — 21 


322  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Acts  5 :  34  ff.  His  woman  of  Samaria  is  a  composite  of  the 
Syro-phoenician  (Mk.  7:  24  ff.)  and  the  "woman  that  was  a 
sinner"  (Lk.  7:36ff.).  His  family  group  at  Bethany  com- 
bines the  traits  of  the  Peraean  scene  of  Lk.  10:  38-42,  the  Gal- 
ilean of  Lk.  7:36  ff.,  and  of  the  parable  of  Lk.  16:  19  ff. 
Even  his  pool  of  Bethcsda  seems  to  have  borrowed  its  most 
distinctive  pecuHarity,  the  periodic  "troubhng  of  the  water," 
from  either  the  Virgin's  Fount  (Gihon)  or  the  pool  of  Siloam. 
It  is  true  that  the  Beloved  disciple  always  comes  to  the  fore 
as  the  Interpreter,  supplying  and  correcting  from  the  evange- 
list's point  of  view,  and  to  this  extent  his  voice  is  the  evange- 
list's voice,  the  same  voice  which  speaks  in  the  "corporation 
we"  of  Jn.  1:14;  3:11  and  throughout  the  Epistles.  He 
does  speak  for  the  author,  as  the  author  himself  speaks  for 
the  Church.  But  to  say  that  he  is  the  author  is  not  only  a 
begging  of  the  question,  but  a  solution  which  would  not 
naturally  suggest  itself  to  minds  not  bent  Uke  that  of  R  on 
securing  at  all  costs  the  segis  of  apostolic  authority  for  the 
Gospel. 

We  may  return  for  a  moment,  apropos  of  this  self-expression 
of  the  writer,  to  the  Epistles,  in  which,  as  we  have  seen, 
he  half  unveils  his  personality.  First  John  explicitly  de- 
clares itself  as  "written  concerning  them  that  would  lead  you 
astray."  The  heretics  in  question  have  been  clearly  identi- 
fied in  both  ancient  and  modern  times  without  serious  dis- 
agreement as  the  same  Docetists  against  whom  Ignatius 
launches  his  fiery  polemics  in  Asia  ca.  110-117  A.  d.  The 
author  of  I  Jn.,  in  a  passage  echoed  not  long  after  by 
Polycarp,  identifies  this  heresy  with  the  predicted  spirit  of 
Antichrist,  herein  rationahzing  on  the  older  apocalyptic 
eschatology  with  its  visible  counterparts  to  Messiah  and  his 
"witnesses"  and  "prophets."  Against  this  false  witness 
our  author  undertakes  to  speak  for  the  Church  which  has 
"an  anointing  from  the  Holy  One  and  knows  all  things" 


THE  BELOVED  DISCIPLE  323 

(I  Jn.  2:  20-27).  This  appeal  to  the  indwelling  "witness  of 
the  Spirit"  is  an  expansion  and  application  of  Paul's  equally 
far-reaching  claim  in  I  Cor.  2 :  6-16  for  those  who  by  endow- 
ment of  this  Spirit  have  become  infused  with  "the  mind  of 
Christ."  One  who  is  thus  "  spiritual"  can  venture,  even  with- 
out new  historical  evidence,  to  write  a  "spiritual"  gospel 
against  traducers  and  dissipators  of  the  evangeUc  faith.  Once 
more  we  demand  the  application  of  the  historic  imagination 
instead  of  the  poetic  or  apologetic.  No  man  is  qualilled  to 
interpret  the  "we"  of  I  Jn.  i :  1-3,  of  Jn.  i :  14  and  Jn.  3:11, 
who  has  not  first  diligently  read  and  compared  I  Cor.  2 :  6-16 
with  I  Jn.  2:  20-27,  interpreting  both  in  the  light  of  the  con- 
troversies of  Asia  in  loo-iio  a.  d.  Read  in  the  sense  it 
would  convey  to  contemporary  minds,  not  even  I  Jn.  1:1-3 
would  suggest  the  idea  that  its  writer  claimed  to  be  an 
apostle,  or  a  personal  disciple  of  Jesus. 

It  is  his  object,  as  we  have  seen,  to  oppose  the  "false 
prophets  who  are  gone  out  into  the  world"  with  a  true  "wit- 
ness"; and  in  this  he  seeks  the  participation  (Koivcovia)  of 
his  readers  (i :  1-4).  At  first  he  speaks  in  behalf  of  a  body  of 
teachers,  who  perpetuate  the  historic  tradition  of  the  con- 
crete, tangible,  human  reality  of  the  incarnate  Logos,  and 
who  transmit  his  "new  commandment."  From  4:12  on, 
the  whole  body  of  those  who  are  conscious  of  the  abiding 
presence  of  God  and  the  gift  of  the  Spirit  arc  associated  with 
the  writer  and  his  fellow-presbyters  in  their  "witness  that 
the  Father  hath  sent  the  Son  to  be  the  Savior  of  the  world." 
Thus  the  Church  in  its  continuous  life  becomes  the  true 
"witness  of  Messiah"  against  the  Antichrist,  (i)  by  its  un- 
broken historic  tradition  (i:  1-3;  4:  14),  (2)  by  the  abiding 
inner  witness  of  the  Spirit  (4:  15-16;  5:  7-12).  The  conclu- 
sive evidence  that  the  body  of  witnesses  to  the  historic,  hu- 
man reality  of  the  manifestation  of  the  Logos  spoken  of  in 
I  Jn.  1 :  1-3,  is  not  limited  to  such  as  could  boast  of  personal 


324  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

intercourse  with  Jesus  is  the  parallel  reference  to  the  incar- 
nation of  the  Logos  in  the  Gospel,  Jn.  1:12-16,  where  it 
would  be  absurd  to  interpret  "tabernacled  among  us"  as 
''among  the  twelve  apostles,"  even  if  verse  16  did  not  sim- 
ilarly make  witnesses  of  all  who  have  shared  in  his  "fulness 
of  grace  and  truth."  The  "we"  of  I  Jn.  i :  1-3  must  there- 
fore be  measured  by  that  of  Jn.  i :  12-16,  where  it  can  only 
mean  "as  many  as  received  him,"  the  spiritually  begotten 
Israel  of  God,  in  contrast  with  ol  lSlol  that  "received  him 
not."  The  case  is  not  radically  different  even  in  Jn.  3:  11, 
where  the  witness  of  the  Church  is  placed,  by  what  at  first 
might  seem  a  startling  anachronism,  in  the  mouth  of  Jesus 
himself : 

"  Verily,  verily  I  say  unto  thee,  We  (the  true  sons  of  God)  speak 
that  we  do  know,  and  bear  witness  of  that  we  have  seen  (r/.  Jn. 
19:  35  and  I  Jn.  i:  1-3;  5:  6-12);  and  ye  (unbeheving  Jews  who 
falsely  claim  to  know  God  and  thus  to  be  his  sons)  receive  not  our 
witness."  ^ 

The  evangelist  thinks  no  more  of  anachronism  in  making 
Jesus  debate  with  a  Jewish  rabbi  the  doctrine  of  the  new 
birth  and  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  of  Adoption,  than  when  in 
the  next  verse  but  one  (3:  13)  he  makes  Jesus  allude  to  his 
own  ascension(!).  Whether  in  the  incarnate  Christ,  or  in 
the  Church,  or  in  the  person  of  the  evangelist  himself, 

"It  is  the  Spirit  that  beareth  witness,  because  the  Spirit  is  the 
truth.  For  there  are  three  who  bear  witness,  the  Spirit  and  the 
water  and  the  blood  (the  two  historic  sacraments  of  the  Church) 
and  the  three  agree  in  one.  .  .  .  And  the  witness  is  this,  that 
God  gave  unto  us  eternal  life,  and  this  life  is  in  his  Son."  " 

For  the  discourses  in  which  Jesus  expounds  the  doctrine 
of  his  own  Sonship,  and  for  the  general  outline  of  evangelic 
tradition  focused  upon  the  two  great  themes  of  "the  water 

ijn.  3:11.  2ijn.  5:8,  II. 


THE  BELOVED  DISCIPLE  325 

and  the  blood"  (ministry  and  passion),  our  evangelist 
needed  no  new  figure  to  serve  as  Interpreter.  Only  where 
particular  points  of  historic  fact  had  assumed  controversial 
or  doctrinal  importance,  as  in  his  bold  assertions  of  Jesus' 
foreknowledge  and  prearrangement  of  his  own  death,  in  the 
scenes  at  the  cross  and  at  the  tomb,  where  the  lack  of  apos- 
tolic testimony  was  most  keenly  felt,  there  was  need  of  a 
more  definite  si)onsor,  a  "spiritual"  disciple  to  solve  the 
enigmas  of  disputed  historic  fact.  This  is  the  function  of 
"the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved,"  and  in  this  sense  he 
speaks  for  the  evangelist  himself. 

But  we  have  s:?en  that  personages  as  well  as  scenes  and 
"signs"  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  are  composite,  and  the  Be- 
loved disciple  is  no  exception  to  the  rule.  In  particular  the 
name  by  which  our  author  chooses  to  designate  him  suggests 
another  factor  in  his  thought.  The  "disciple  whom  Jesus 
loved"  is  something  more  than  a  purely  ideal  figure.  A  very 
real  man  has  sat  for  the  portrait;  although,  as  already  stated, 
this  is  not  a  case  of  self-portraiture. 

\\q  ha\'e  seen  that  the  Beloved  disciple  enters  on  the  scene 
only  in  the  drama  of  the  cross  and  resurrection.  His  gospel  of 
redemption  is  his  by  mystic  union  with  Christ  in  the  fellow- 
ship of  his  suffering  and  the  power  of  his  resurrection.  We 
have  seen  also  that  he  stands  in  some  special  antithetic  re- 
lation to  Peter.  We  have  found  that  ultimately  it  must  be  one 
who  anywhere,  in  any  generation,  enters  the  eternal  life,  Hke 
the  evangelist  himself,  by  appropriating  "the  mind  which  was 
in  Christ  Jesus."  But  the  term  "disciple  whom  Jesus  loved" 
cannot  well  have  been  coined,  nor  his  relation  to  the  "first"  of 
the  twelve  thus  depicted,  without  a  primary  reference  to  that 
great  Apostle  who,  when  even  Peter  was  recreant  and  blind  to 
the  real  significance  of  the  doctrine  he  j)rofessed  to  follow,  cut 
into  the  rock  foundation  of  the  Church  the  true  gospel  of  the 
redemption.     No  language  ever  framed  can  so  express  the 


326  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

whole  heart  secret  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  as  that  great  utterance 
of  Paul,  wherein,  as  against  the  inadequate  apprehension  Peter 
had  shown  of  the  true  meaning  of  the  cross,  he  pours  out  his 
soul's  experience  of  Christ.  If  the  Fourth  Gospel  be  "the 
heart  of  Christ,"  the  heart  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  Paul's  con- 
fession of  his  faith  in  Galatians  2 :  20: 

"I  have  been  crucified  with  Christ;  yet  I  live;  and  yet  no  longer 
I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me:  and  that  life  which  I  now  live  in  the 
flesh  I  live  in  faith,  the  faith  which  is  in  the  Son  of  God,  who 
LOVED  ME  {tov  dyaTrycravTos  /At),  and  gave  himself  up  for  me." 

In  this  sense  Paul,  and  whosoever  has  had  Paul's  ex- 
perience— whosoever  has  thus  seen  the  Lord,  whether  in  the 
body  or  out  of  the  body,  whosoever  has  come  to  "know  him 
and  the  power  of  his  resurrection" — is  the  "disciple  whom 
Jesus  loved."  For  it  is  Paul  who  first  set  the  example  of 
such  personal  appropriation  of  the  love  manifested  toward 
us  "while  we  were  yet  enemies." 

The  author  of  the  editorial  Appendix  has  determined  for  all 
subsequent  "defenders"  another  sense  in  which  the  figure  of 
the  Beloved  disciple  must  be  taken.  For  the  sake  of  securing 
to  the  "spiritual"  Gospel  the  standing  which  in  his  age  it  could 
not  have  unless  declared  to  be  "apostolic,"  he  has  cautiously 
and  by  veiled  suggestion,  yet  unmistakably,  introduced  his 
own  interpretation,  cancelling,  it  would  scem,^  a  few  traits 
which  offered  obstacles  in  the  body  of  the  work,  and  attach- 
ing at  least  the  direct  declaration  in  19:  35,  perhaps  other  and 
longer  passages.  The  enigmatic  figure,  he  beheves,  was  John 
the  son  of  Zebedee,  next  to  Peter  in  prominence  in  Synoptic 
story.  John  was  suited  to  the  role  as  author  of  a  gospel  of 
Ephesian  provenance  by  the  currently  accepted  representa- 
tion that  he  had  written  the  Asiatic  book  of  Revelation. 
There  was  indeed  the  objection  that  this  disciple  like  his 

1  See  above,  p.  201  f. 


THE  BELOVED  DISCIPLE  •     327 

brother  James  had  "fulfilled  Christ's  j)rophecy  concerning 
them  and  their  own  confession  and  undertaking  on  his  be- 
half" by  "following"  the  Lord  in  martyrdom,  even  before 
Peter  had  glorified  God  in  the  manner  of  his  death.  But 
there  was  also  a  concurrent  and  rival  tradition,  perhaps  origi- 
nating from  the  long  life  of  "the  Elder  John  "  of  Jerusalem 
(ob.  117  A.  D.),  or  perhaps  starting  from  the  known  date  of 
Revelation  (93  A.  d.),  which  connected  with  this  ai)ostle  the 
promise  of  another  kind  of  fxaprvpia — that  of  the  abiding 
"witness  of  Messiah"  who  according  to  Mk.  9:  i  should  not 
"  taste  of  death  "  until  the  Coming  of  the  Lord.  R  knows  how 
to  adjust  these  rival  traditions  to  his  theory.  Although  "that 
disciple  whom  Jesus  loved"  seemed  also  to  "follow"  after 
the  example  of  Peter,  yet  Peter's  inference  as  to  his  fate  was 
incorrect.  Jesus'  reply  to  the  inquiry  "What  of  this  man?" 
was  only  "What  is  that  to  thee,  follow  thou  me."  Conversely 
the  inference  was  also  wrong  which  had  been  drawn  from  the 
words  "If  I  will  that  he  tarry  till  I  come."  This  too  was  not 
a  promise  but  a  mere  supposition.  Wliat  was  really  meant 
was  the  abiding  "witness"  of  the  Beloved  disciple's  writing, 
the  Gospel  now  presented  to  the  reader,  whose  contents  R, 
speaking  for  the  Church  at  large,  guarantees  to  be  "true." 

The  difficulty  of  the  tradition  of  John's  martyrdom  thus  re- 
moved, there  might  well  seem — to  R — no  insuperable  ob- 
stacle to  his  identification  of  the  ideal  disciple  with  the  son  of 
Zebedee.  And  if  our  ideas  of  John's  character  are  framed  on 
the  lines  afforded  by  the  Gospel  and  Epistles,  ignoring  Reve- 
lation and  accommodating  the  Synoptic  and  Pauline  refer- 
ences to  the  figure  required  by  Irenaean  theory,  it  is  of  course 
easy  to  follow  this  lead. 

But  what  do  we  really  know  of  John  the  son  of  Zebedee 
ajter  deducting  the  legends  and  inferences  drawn  from  the  ma- 
terial in  debate.    It  will  not  take  long  to  state  the  sum  total. 

Once,  and  once  only,  does  John  the  son  of  Zebedee  appear 


328  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

in  Synoptic  tradition  in  a  separate  role.  The  Roman  and 
Pauline  Gospel  of  Mark  records  a  rebuke  of  Jesus  admin- 
istered to  him  for  a  special  instance  of  intolerance : 

"  John  said  unto  him,  Master,  we  saw  one  casting  out  devils 
in  thy  name:  and  we  forbade  him,  because  he  followed  not  us. 
But  Jesus  said.  Forbid  him  not:  for  there  is  no  man  which  shall 
do  a  mighty  work  in  my  name,  and  be  able  quickly  to  speak  evil 
of  me.    For  he  that  is  not  against  us  is  for  us."  ^ 

The  Palestinian  Gospel  of  Matthew  not  only  cancels  this 
rebuke  of  John,  with  its  sweeping  assertion  of  the  Pauline 
principle  that  gifts  of  the  Spirit  are  the  supreme  token  of  true 
discipleship,^  but  inserts  after  the  saying  "By  their  fruits  ye 
shall  know  them"  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  a  completely 
contrary  doctrine: 

"  Many  will  say  to  me  in  that  day.  Lord,  Lord,  did  we  not 
prophesy  by  thy  name,  and  by  thy  name  cast  out  devils,  and  by 
thy  name  do  many  mighty  works?  And  then  will  I  profess  unto 
them,  I  never  knew  you:  depart  from  me  ye  that  work  iniquity 
(di/o/i.ta)."  ^ 

Even  the  saying  quoted  in  Mk.  9 :  40  is  reversed  in  Mt.  12 :  30: 

"He  that  is  not  with  me  is  against  me."  ^ 

Clearly  there  was  difference  of  opinion  between  Jerusalem 
and  Rome  as  to  the  value  of  "gifts  of  the  Spirit"  as  witness  to 
discipleship.  But  in  neither  of  the  earlier  gospels  is  there  any 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  position  of  John  with  respect 
to  this  moot-point  of  primitive  fellowship.    John  stands  where 

iMk.  9:38-40. 

2  Gal.  3:5.  Mark,  like  the  Corinthians,  takes  this  principle  in  the  cruder, 
more  external  sense. 

3  Mt.  7:22-23. 

^  Cf.  the  following  context  (ver.  33)  with  that  of  the  preceding  passage 
(Mt.  7:19).  Mark  maintains  that  gifts  of  the  Spirit  are  "fruits."  "Mat- 
thew" denies  this  unless  those  thus  endowed  are  keepers  of  the  law  (v6/xos). 


THE  BELOVED  DISCIPLE  329 

Paul's  reference  in  Gal.  2:  9  would  lead  us  to  anticipate,  side 
by  side  with  James,  a  "pillar"  of  the  Jerusalem  church, 
willingly  relinquishing  to  Paul  all  part  or  lot  in  "the  gospel  of 
the  uncircumcision"  as  something  to  which  he  felt  no  call. 
He  is  not  even  involved  with  Peter  in  the  controversy  which 
subsequently  broke  out  at  Antioch  over  the  impUcations  of 
the  agreement  with  Paul;  for  his  name  remains  utterly  un- 
connected with  the  whole  question  of  the  Gentiles  and  their 
affairs.  John  simply  went  with  James  "to  the  circumcision" 
(Gal.  2:9).  There  is  no  early  evidence  whatsoever  that  he 
ever  reversed  this  momentous  decision.  All  that  we  have 
tends  simply  to  confirm  it. 

"James  and  John"  together,  as  we  have  seen,^  are  known 
to  Synoptic  tradition  in  the  role  of  martyrs  who  drink  Jesus' 
cup  and  are  baptized  with  his  baptism;  but  here  again  Mark's 
introduction  of  the  incident  is  with  the  primary  object  of  re- 
buking the  spirit  of  narrow  and  ambitious  self-assertion  which 
the  sons  of  Zebedee  had  exempUfied  in  their  desire  to  obtain 
the  places  of  honor  in  the  kingdom.  "Matthew"  makes  his 
usual  minute  changes  -  to  reHeve  James  and  John  of  the  im- 
putation. Luke  omits.  Connected,  perhaps,  with  this  con- 
ception, is  Mark's  interpretation  of  the  surname  Boanerges 
CSlk.  3:17)  and  Luke's  supplement  to  the  rebuke  of  John's 
intolerance  in  the  rebuke  of  "James  and  John"  for  seek- 
ing an  EUjan  vengeance  on  inhospitable   Samaritans  (Lk. 

9:51-56). 

Aside  from  these  two  rebukes  we  have  absolutely  nothing 
in  Synoptic  tradition  to  (Hstinguish  John  from  the  rest  of  the 
group  of  fishermen  first  called  to  discipleship  at  the  sea  of 
GaUlee,  save  the  grouping  with  Peter  and  James  in  three 

1  See  above,  Chapter  V. 

2  In  Mt.  20:  20  the  mother  of  James  and  John  makes  the  objectionable 
request.  Mr.  Worsley  (pp.  cil.,  p.  i6y)  "thinks  we  should  accept  the  shght 
correction." 


330  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Markan  scenes  already  discussed/  and  the  faint  traces  in 
Lk.-Acts  of  his  appearance  as  a  satclHte  of  Peter.  If  we  ask, 
How  can  it  be  imagined  that  a  Gahk^an  fisherman  should 
possess  the  literary  and  philosophic  culture  evinced  by  the 
fourth  evangelist  ?  we  are  told  that  in  Zebedee's  fishing  boat 
there  were  also  "hired  men"!  If  every  characteristic  of  the 
great  god  of  Paul  is  the  reverse  of  what  seems  to  be  evinced 
by  the  meager  references  of  the  synoptists,  and  even  of  the 
position  occupied  by  John  so  late  as  Paul's  visit  to  Jerusalem 
ca.  50  A,  D.,  we  are  assured  that  after  coming  to  Ephesus 
John's  views  became  enlarged  and  Paulinized ! 

These  three,  (i)  the  reference  of  Paul  in  Gal.  2:  9,  (2)  the 
attachment  by  Mark  of  his  example  of  anti-Paulinistic  in- 
tolerance to  the  name  of  "John,"  (3)  the  references  to  "James 
and  John"  the  "sons  of  thunder"  as  martyrs  and  perhaps  as 
avengers  of  the  rejection  of  the  Christ,  are  the  only  gleams 
of  light  the  first  century  affords  to  differentiate  John  of 
Capernaum  momentarily  from  the  undistinguished  group  of 
Galilean  peasants  and  fishermen  who  are  raised  for  a  single 
hour  by  their  association  with  Jesus  into  the  light  of  history, 
but  relapse  promptly,  with  the  one  exception  of  Peter,  into 
their  natural  oblivion.  Of  the  three  references  not  one  affords 
a  single  trait  to  recall  or  suggest  the  author  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel.  Each  and  every  one,  on  the  contrary,  raises  its  own 
insuperable  objection  to  the  intrinsically  improbable  identi- 
fication made  by  R  in  the  Appendix. 
f  Many  will  doubtless  continue  to  hold  that  at  least  R  is  not 
wrong  in  supposing  the  figure  of  the  Beloved  disciple  to  have 
been  intended  to  represent  John.  The  present  writer  himself, 
until  more  careful  scrutiny  of  the  evidence  convinced  him 
of  the  baselessness  of  the  tradition  of  John  in  Asia,  clung  to 
this  remnant  of  Irenaean  theory.  But  even  were  this  granted 
how  little  of  the  case  would  be  altered!    This  Beloved  dis- 

1  Chapter  V. 


THE  BELOVED  DISCIPLE  331 

ciplc  will  be  baptized  into  the  name  of  John,  but  the  figure 
itself  will  gain  no  appreciable  degree  of  historicity.  The 
change  will  be  from  ideality  to  idealization.  It  will  still  be 
not  a  real,  but  an  ideal  John,  not  the  rough  unlettered  Gali- 
lean, but  a  Greek-speaking,  Pauhne  Christian  of  100  a.  d., 
who  in  the  Gosj)el  is  j)rojected  in  bodiless  form  into  the  scenes 
of  llic  i)ast.  For  it  is  not  merely  the  figure  of  Jesus  which 
in  the  P^ourth  Gosj)el  undergoes  a  perpetual  transfiguration. 
The  Beloved  disciple  too  has  attained  Paul's  goal  of  true 
discipleship : 

"  But  we  all  with  unveiled  face,  reflecting  as  a  mirror  the  glory  of 
the  Lord,  are  transfigured  (ixcTafiop<f>oviJi€6a)  into  the  same  image 
from  glory  to  glory,  even  as  from  the  Lord,  the  Spirit."  ^ 

For  reasons  such  as  these  we  arc  constrained  to  disagree 
with  R's  interj)retation  of  the  enigmatic  figure.  R's  exegesis 
of  the  three  passages  involved  seems  to  us  less  consonant  with 
historical  and  scientific  exegesis  than  with  the  effort  of  his  own 
time  to  magnify  the  persons  of  the  apostles  and  to  involve  their 
authority.  If  the  reader's  patience  has  been  taxed  by  the 
fullness  of  our  attempt  to  set  forth  the  exact  nature  of  our 
difference  with  the  waiter  of  19:  35  and  21:  24,  we  plead  in 
extenuation  the  necessity  that  is  put  upon  us  of  proving  that 
a  difference  of  judgment  with  R  on  a  point  of  exegesis  is  not 
equivalent  to  "calHng  the  evangelist  a  Har." 

1 II  Cor.  3:18. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

JOHANNINE   PRAGMATISM 

Our  study  of  The  Evangelist's  Task,  and  the  use  to  which 
he  has  put  his  figure  of  the  Beloved  Disciple,  should  prepare 
us  to  anticipate  a  complete  recast  of  the  Markan  embodi- 
ment of  evangelic  tradition,  selective  and  illustrative  in  pur- 
pose, symboHc  in  method,  with  the  object  of  "bringing 
out"  the  higher  or  "spiritual"  gospel  of  Paul  whose  content 
is  "life"  by  "believing  in  the  name  of  the  Son  of  God." 
Systematic  inspection  of  the  changes  undergone  by  Synoptic 
material  in  its  Johannine  embodiment  will  prove  that  such 
is  the  case.  The  "supplementations"  and  "corrections"  of 
the  Synoptists  are  not  such  as  would  be  made  by  an  eye- 
witness improving  the  inaccuracies  and  oversights  of  the 
historically  less  well  informed;  but  are  primarily  doctrinal 
and  theoretic,  subordinately  apologetic  and  setiological,  but 
always  a  priori.  In  short,  the  author  "perceiving  that  the 
bodily  (or  external)  facts  had  been  set  forth  in  the  (other) 
Gospels     .     .     .     composed  a  spiritual  Gospel."  ^ 

In  considering  this  question  of  the  evangehst's  use  of 
Synoptic  material  we  are  fortunately  able  to  limit  ourselves 
to  a  few  fundamental  traits,  using  merely  enough  of  specific 
reference  to  establish  the  points  in  question,  and  postponing 
such  detailed  study  of  the  Gospel  throughout  as  belongs 
properly  to  the  commentator.  The  excellence  of  the  work 
already  done,  especially  by  Scott  ^  and  Schmiedel,^  in  the 

1  Clement  of  Alexandria,  ap.  Eusebius,  H.  E.  VI,  xiv,  7. 

2  Ut  supra. 

3  The  Johannine  Writings,  Pt.  I.  The  Fourth  Gospel  in  Comparison 
with  the  first  ttiree  Gospels.  London,  Adam  and  Charles  Black,  1908. 

332 


JOHANNINE  PRAGMATISM  ^33 

line  of  afl'irmativc  and  negative  criticism,  and  that  of  the  two 
Holtzmanns/  Heitmiiller,-  and  Loisy,'"*  in  the  line  of  his- 
torical exegesis,  makes  restatement  needless. 

Unhke  the  ircnic  interpretation  of  Scott,  Schmicdcl's  dis- 
cussion undertakes  the  thankless  but  necessary  task  of  what 
is  called  destructive  criticism,  preparing  the  way  for  an  ade- 
quate and  historical  appreciation  of  the  Gospel  by  proving 
that  its  reconstruction  of  the  story  is  not  such  as  the  "de- 
fenders" maintain,  but  that  from  the  merely  historical  stand- 
point it  is  botli  dependent  and  inferior.    ^ 

The  consistently  "subjective"  character  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  its  author's  "carelessness"  in  narrative  and  "free- 
dom" in  reproducing  the  thought  of  Jesus  in  language 
proved  to  be  the  evangelist's  own  by  identity  of  style  with 
the  Epistles  are  so  universally  and  freely  acknowledged  by 
leading  "defenders"  '^  that  further  demonstration  of  these 
points  may  well  seem  like  beating  the  air.  But  Sanday,  and 
(indirectly  at  least)  even  Drummond,  still  maintains  that 
"traits  of  the  eye-witness"  are  so  prominent  in  this  Gospel 
as  to  imply  not  merely  occasional  access  to  more  trustworthy 
tradition  than  that  of  the  Synoptists,  but  personal  partici- 
pation by  the  author  in  the  scenes  narrated.  In  particular 
we  are  referred  to  the  mention  of  minute  details  of  place  and 
time,  including  new  proper  names,  as  in  the  scenes  of  the 
Call  of  the  earliest  disciples,  i :  19-51 ;  the  Samaritan  Woman, 
4:1-45;  the  Feeding  of  the  Multitude,  6: 1-21;  the  Raising 
of  Lazarus,  11:1-57;  ^^^  the  Resurrection,  20:1-29.  ^^ 
are  reluctantly  compelled,  therefore,  to  devote  a  j)rcliminary 

1  Das  J ohannesei'angeliiun  untersucht  tend  erklart,  von  Oscar  Holtzmann, 
Darmstadt,  1887;  and  Handkommentar  zum  neiien  Testament,  Bd.  IV,  by 
H.  J.  Holtzmann,  1908. 

^  Schriften  des  neuen  Testaments,  by  J.  Weiss,  Bd.  II,  pp.  685-861,  1908, 
by  W.  Heitmiiller. 

3  Le  Qiiatrieme  Evangile,  A.  Loisy,  Paris,  1903. 

*  E.  g.,  Drummond,  Character  and  Authorship,  pp.  34-41. 


334  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

and  (in  one  aspect)  "destructive"  discussion  to  what  Pro- 
fessor Sanday  designates  "the  pragmatism  of  the  Gospel."  ^ 

For  mere  purposes  of  disproof  of  Sanday' s  explanation  it 
should  be  enough  merely  to  point  to  an  instance  or  two  of 
mistaken  dependence  on  the  Synoptists,  where  on  the  tra- 
ditional assumption  John,  as  an  eye-witness,  must  have  had 
better  knowledge.  A  number  of  examples  of  such  "inju- 
dicious reliance  on  the  Synoptics"  are  given  by  Professor 
Schmiedel  on  pages  81-83  of  his  httle  book.^  We  will  cite 
but  one,  somewhat  independently  of  Schmiedel. 

Following  the  later  tendency  to  combination  already  re- 
ferred to  ^  Luke  in  omitting  Mark's  story  of  the  Anointing 
of  Jesus  in  Bethany  (Mk.  14:3-9)  had  reserved  the  more 
striking  details,  the  name  "Simon"  for  the  host  and  the 
"alabaster  box  of  pistic  (?)  ointment,"  to  embelUsh  there- 
with his  own  quite  independent  incident  of  the  Penitent 
Harlot  (Lk.  7:36-50).  The  reader  of  this  latter  touching 
narrative  will  see  at  once  how  greatly  it  gains  in  simplicity 
and  consistency  by  simply  omitting  the  three  allusions  to 
the  "  pistic  ointment "  in  verses  37,  38,  and  46.  This  woman, 
because  she  is  a  ^^ sinner  "  dares  not  hke  the  female  disciple 
of  Mark  openly  approach  the  head  of  Jesus,  but  (as  he  lies 
recUning  with  head  toward  the  table)  steals  to  his  feet  and 
standing  there  bedews  them  with  her  tears.  Then,  as  if 
fearful  of  the  consequences  of  this  "defilement"  of  the 
"prophet,"  and  having  no  other  means  to  remove  it,  she 
brushes  the  tears  away  with  her  hair.  Jesus  beautifully 
contrasts  this  cleansing  of  his  feet  with  the  omitted  courtesy 
of  his  Pharisaic  host.     The  costly  anointing,  editorially  in- 

1  Criticism,  Lecture  IV.  Professor  Sanday  uses  the  term  "pragmatism" 
"to  describe  a  very  marked  characteristic  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  the  abund- 
ance of  detail — to  all  appearance  precise  detail — with  which  it  presents  its 
pictures." 

2  Johannine  Writings. 

3  Above,  p.  321. 


JOHANNINE  PRAGMATISM  335 

troduccd  to  heighten  the  contrast/  is  both  improbable  and 
incongruous,  preeminently  so  when  expended  upon  the 
feet  (!).  But  the  fourth  evangelist  is  not  content  with  the 
degree  of  combination  already  effected  by  the  Lukan  re- 
dactor. He  makes  the  scene  still  more  composite  by  identify- 
ing the  woman  with  Mary,  in  whose  home  be  yond  Jordan 
Jesus  had  been  entertained  according  to  Lk.  10:38-42,  and 
retains  only  the  most  extravagant  and  unnatural  features 
of  the  (composite)  scene,  that  this  Mary  anointed  Jesus'  jcet 
with  precious  "pistic"  nard,  and  then  wiped  it  away  (why?) 
with  her  hair!  The  result  is  not  only  to  leave  us  (juite  in 
doubt  as  to  the  character  of  this  "Mary,"  but  to  require  a 
double  for  "  the  village  of  Mary  and  her  sister  Martha";  be- 
cause in  IMark  the  anointing  had  taken  place  in  Bethany 
near  Jerusalem,  whereas  in  Luke  Mary's  "village"  was  be- 
yond Jordan.  In  the  Fourth  Gospel,  accordingly,  we  have 
two  Bethanys,  between  which  Jesus  oscillates  in  the  last 
weeks  of  his  life,  "Bethany  nigh  unto  Jerusalem,  about 
fifteen  furlongs  off,"  where  Jesus  stays  with  the  sisters  Mary 
and  Martha  and  their  brother  Lazarus  (from  Lk.  16:  ig-31), 
and  a  "Bethany  beyond  Jordan,"  elsewhere  unheard  of, 
whence  Jesus  comes  to  them  for  the  purpose  of  raising 
Lazarus  from  the  dead  (10:  40;  i :  28).' 

In  textual  criticism  there  is  no  more  positively  established 

1  Festal  anointing  was  a  not  uncommon  practice — of  course  on  the  h£ad — 
cf.  Is.  61:3;  Ps.  23:5;  141:5.  That  of  Mk.  14:3-9,  however,  is  more 
solemn  and  exceptional.  It  is  intended  by  the  woman  as  messianic;  cf. 
I  Sam.  10:  I.  As  we  understand  Schmiedel  he  does  not  regard  these  Markan 
traits  in  Luke's  story  as  redactional  additions  to  a  pre-Lucan  source,  but 
regards  the  entire  narrative  as  a  Lucan  composition  influenced  at  these 
points  by  Mark. 

2  "Bethany  beyond  Jordan,"  wliich  also  serves  as  the  scene  of  John's 
Baptism,  is  the  only  Palestinian  locality  off  the  direct  high  road  from  Jerusa- 
lem through  Samaria  to  Capernaum  that  appears  in  our  evangelist's  topog- 
raphy. On  his  acquaintance  with  Palestinian  geography  see  below,  Chap- 
ter XV. 


336  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

principle  than  the  secondary  character  of  conflate  readings 
as  against  the  factors  of  which  they  are  made  up.  In  the 
Fourth  Gospel  conflation  of  incidents,  scenes  and  characters 
is  the  rule.  We  have  not  only  composites,  but,  as  we  have 
just  seen,  composites  of  composites,  and  the  uniform  tendency 
is  that  the  changes  from  Mark  toward  a  more  theoretical, 
less  historical  view  in  the  later  gospels  of  Matthew  and  Luke 
are  carried  in  "John"  much  further  still  in  the  idealizing 
direction.  We  have  seen  how  this  theoretical  transformation 
operates  in  the  case  of  the  Betrayer.  It  is  notoriously  the 
case  in  regard  to  the  representation  of  Jesus'  person,  his 
sayings  and  his  miracles.  We  shall  see  that  in  other  respects 
also,  such  as  the  representation  of  the  Baptist  and  his  func- 
tion, the  controversy  with  "the  Jews,"  and  the  like,  the  same 
principle  holds  true.  Two  points  only  (i)  the  evangehst's 
chronological  and  topographical  equipment,  (2)  his  treat- 
ment of  the  sacraments,  in  particular  of  the  sacrament  of 
the  "flesh"  and  blood  of  the  Lord,  call  by  their  complexity 
for  separate  discussion.  Reserving  these,  we  may  return 
to  what  Professor  Sanday  designates  his  "pragmatism," 
showing  in  the  present  chapter  that  the  supposed  indica- 
tions of  first-hand  testimony  in  "precise  details"  have  in 
reaUty  a  quite  different  significance.  In  the  chapter  follow- 
ing we  shall  consider  the  general  structure  and  outline  of 
the  story,  investigating  the  Johanninc  treatment  of  Synoptic 
material  in  its  broader  phases,  whether  as  to  (a)  omissions, 
or  (b)  supplements,  or  (c)  changes  and  substitutions.  The 
results  of  this  latter  study  may  even  here  be  anticipated — 
since  the  relation  is  really  notorious — to  the  extent  of  saying 
that  the  changes  are  not  those  of  a  better  informed  eye- 
witness, but  the  theoretical  reconstructions  of  a  later  "theo- 
logian" intent  on  "bringing  out  "  the  religious,  doctrinal,  or 
apologetic  values,  on  the  basis  of  the  spiritual  gospel  of  Paul, 
Professor  Sanday's  contention  for  the  "pragmatism"  of 


JOHANNINE  PRAGMATISM  337 

the  Fourth  Gospel  is  considerably  embarrassed  at  the  outset 
by  the  fact  that  his  foremost  witness,  Dr.  Drummond,  from 
whom  he  had  {[uoted  a  comment  on  the  "variety  of  character 
that  passes  before  us,  and  the  graphic  nature  of  some  of  the 
descriptions," 

"turns  round  upon  himself,  and  proceeds  to  discount  the  infer- 
ence that  might  be  drawn  from  these  characteristics  of  the  Gospel. 
While  allowing  that  they  fit  in  excellently  with  the  external  evi- 
dence (in  favor  of  the  tradition),  he  will  not  urge  them  as  an  in- 
dependent proof  of  authorship,  because  'the  introduction  of  names 
and  details  is  quite  in  accordance  with  the  usage  oj  Apocryphal 
composition.^  "  ^ 

Dr.  Drummond,  having  no  interest  to  defend  the  his- 
torical accuracy  of  the  Gospel,  which  to  him  is  "of  a  lowTr 
historical  value  than  the  Synoptics  and  .  .  .  to  be  ac- 
cepted more  in  the  spirit  than  in  the  letter,"  ^  is  naturally 
unwilUng  to  risk  his  reputation  as  a  historical  critic  in  so  pre- 
carious a  contention  as  Sanday's.  He  therefore  states  with 
a  freedom  unwelcome  to  his  more  conservative  ally  the  fact, 
well  known  to  scholars,  that  such  "detail"  is  characteristic 
of  the  later  and  legendary  elaborations  of  bibUcal  story, 
whether  in  Church  or  Synagogue.  To  know  the  names  of 
the  obscurer  characters — yes  even  of  the  angels  and  demons — 
is  more  apt  to  be  a  mark  of  late  and  legendary  writers  than 
of  the  earlier.  The  knowledge,  e.  g.,  that  the  name  of  the 
servant  whose  ear  (Lk,  ^^ right  car")  was  cut  off  by  a  "by- 
stander" in  Mark's  story  of  the  Arrest  (Mk.  14:47)  was 
"Malchus,"  that  "Peter"  was  the  inexpert  swordsman,  and 
that  the  servant  was  a  "kinsman"  of  the  slave  encountered 
later  by  Peter  in  the  high  priest's  courtyard,  is  paralleled 
by  that  of  the  aj)Ocryjjhal  Ads.  These  can  inform  us,  for 
example,  that  the  centurion  who  stood  at  the  cross  was  named 

'  Criticism,  p.  112.    Italics  ours.  2  Ihid.,  p.  65. 

Fourth  Gospel — 22 


338  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Longinus/  know  the  names  of  both  the  thieves,  and  the 
name  and  story  of  the  centurion  converted  by  Peter  at 
Caesarea.  The  fourth  evangeHst's  naming  of  Peter  in 
Jn.  i8:  lo,  II,  and  of  other  interlocutors  among  the  disciples 
elsewhere  (Andrew,  Philip,  Thomas,  Judas  not  Iscariot,  etc.), 
has  precisely  the  significance  of  the  first  evangehst's  substi- 
tution of  "Peter"  for  Mark's  "the  disciples"  in  Mt.  15:  15 
and  18:  21,  and  the  third  evangelist's  substitution  of  "Peter 
and  John"  (Lk.  22:  8)  for  the  "two  disciples"  of  Mk.  14:  13. 
The  only  difference  is  that  the  phenomenon  is  most  pro- 
nounced and  frequent  in  the  latest  gospel. 

Professor  Sanday  admits  indeed  that  "the  examples  given 
(by  Drummond)  are  quite  to  the  point,"  but  pleads  that  in 
the  Apocryphal  Gospels  and  Acts 

"place-names  are  somewhat  less  common  than  names  of  persons; 
and  where  there  is  any  real  precision  in  the  use  of  place-names  an 
inference  in  regard  to  the  author  .  .  .  may  be  fairly  de- 
duced." ^ 

The  observation  is  true,  for  the  obvious  reason  that  place- 
names  if  wrongly  employed  would  reveal  the  fiction,  whereas 
personal  names  are  not  subsequently  verifiable.  "Where 
there  is  any  real  precision"  we  too  shall  endeavor  to  deduce 
the  proper  inference  as  regards  the  fourth  evangelist.  In- 
deed we  may  say  at  once  that  as  regards  localities  along  a 
single  limited  line  0}  travel  in  Palestine,  the  evangelist  un- 
questionably has  first-hand  knowledge.  And  he  makes  the 
utmost  of  it.^ 

But  what  sort  of  motive  is  it  which  supplements  the  Markan 
story  of  the  blind  man  healed  by  clay  and  spittle  (Mk.  8:  22- 
26=  Jn.  9:  1-7)  with  the  direction 

1  From  \6yxr),  the  "lance"  wherewith  Jesus'  side  was  pierced? 

2  Ibid.,  p.  112. 

3  See  below,  Chapter  XV. 


JOHANNINE  PRAGMATISM  339 

"Go,  wash  in  the  pool  of  Siloam,  which  is  by  interpretation, 
Sent  (dTreo-ToA/xo/os)  "?  ^ 

Stich  detail  is  to  be  classed  with  that  of  the  precise  number  of 
fishes  in  the  miraculous  draft  specified  by  R  in  the  Ap- 
pendix (21:  11)  as  "one  hundred  and  fifty  and  three,"  which 
corresponds  exactly  with  the  suj)posed  number  of  existing 
varieties.  It  stands  on  a  ])ar  with  the  specification  (6:9) 
that  the  five  loaves  at  the  miraculous  Galilean  Agape  were 
of  "  barley"  like  those  of  Elisha's  similar  miracle  in  II  Kings  4: 
42;  and  the  "  correction  "  of  Mark's  "  green  litter  {a-ri/SaSa^) 
from  the  fields"  strewn  in  Jesus'  way  (Mk.  11:8),  into 
"  palm-branches"  (Jn.  12: 13).  Symbolically  there  is  gain; 
for  the  palm-branch  typified  triumph  and  victory  (Rev.  7 : 9). 
Historicaly  there  is  loss;  for  the  palm  is  an  exotic  in  the 
climate  of  Jerusalem. 

These  arc  not  exceptional  instances  of  the  fourth  evan- 
gelist's "pragmatism"  but  typical  and  characteristic.  Even 
the  pathos  of  the  supreme  tragedy  does  not  make  it  to  him 
a  banality  to  supplement  the  Synoptic  story  of  the  slaking  of 
Jesus'  thirst  by  the  statement  that  Jesus  had  first  said  "I 
thirst"  which  was  a  "fulfilment  of  scripture"  (Ps.  22:16), 
and  that  the  partition  of  his  garments  corresponded  in 
"detail"  with  the  same  psalm  (Ps.  22:19),  because  the 
soldiers  both  "parted  his  garments  among  them"  and  also 
"cast  lots  upon  his  vesture."  Is  it  psychologically  credible 
that  "details"  of  this  kind  would  preoccupy  the  mind  of  the 
sole  surviving  witness  of  the  Crucifixion? 

Deeper  study  of  the  much  lauded  Johannine  "pragma- 
tism," in  the  light  of  the  known  propensities  of  haggadic 
interpreters  of  sacred  story  to  introduce  "  abundance  of  de- 
tail— to  all  appearance  precise  detail — "  of  time,  place  and 
circumstance,  especially  where  it  can   subserve  a  didactic, 

1  Jn.  9:7;  c/.  6:  29;  17:3. 


340  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

symbolic,  or  apologetic  purpose,  completely  reverses  its  prima 
facie  significance.  At  first  "this  apparent  precision,  more 
especially  in  the  notes  of  place  and  time"  seems  a  "  'trump- 
card'  in  the  hands  of  the  defenders."  When  we  compare 
the  entire  series,  and  with  it  the  phenomena  of  contemporary 
midrash,^  we  note  that  the  didactic,  symbolic,  or  apologetic 
purpose  is  almost  always  apparent  in  Johannine  detail, 
while  the  larger  outline  of  each  scene  as  a  whole,  and  of  the 
Gospel  as  a  whole,  shows  the  very  reverse  of  the  characteris- 
tics which  are  inseparable  from  the  true  eye-witness. 

The  limitations  of  our  knowledge  forbid  that  in  every 
case  we  should  see  with  the  clearness  of  the  original  reader 
what  was  the  intended  purpose,  symboUc  or  other.  For  ex- 
ample, no  one  doubts  that  the  motive  for  the  remark  "and 
it  was  night"  after  the  exit  of  the  Betrayer  from  the  scene 
of  the  farewell  Supper  (13:30)  is  symbolic.  Shall  we  say 
the  same  of  the  note  of  circumstance  in  12:3  "And  the  hous3 
was  filled  with  the  odor  of  the  ointment"  ?  The  clause  takes 
the  place  of  the  Synoptic  direction,  "Wheresoever  the  gospel 
is  preached  that  also  which  this  woman  hath  done  shall  be 
spoken  of  for  a  memorial  of  her"  (Mk.  i4:9  =  Mt.  26:  13), 
a  direction  which  nevertheless  had  not  availed  to  secure 
mention  of  the  incident  in  Luke.  Moreover,  the  comparison 
of  deeds  of  ministering  love  to  the  odor  of  sacrifice  ascend- 
ing as  a  "memorial"  to  God,  or  filling  the  place  of  worship, 
is  almost  stereotyped  in  biblical  parlance.^  Still  in  this  case 
we  are  not  so  sure  that  there  was  symbolic  purpose.  Again, 
the  example  of  Mk.  15:  i,  25,  t,t„  34,  42,  in  which  the  four 

1  As  an  example  of  "midrash"  to  those  who  may  be  unfamiliar  with  the 
literature  covered  by  the  term  we  may  cite  the  beautiful  fable  of  Jonah, 
whose  relation  to  the  nationalistic  prophecies  of  the  Assyro-Babylonian 
period  resembles  that  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  to  the  Synoptics.  The  abuse 
of  Jonah  in  treating  it  as  no  more  than  a  narrative  of  sober  fact  is  equally 
flagrant. 

2  Ex.  40:  34  f.,  etc.,  Tobit.  12:  12,  15;  Acts  10:  4;  Eph.  5:  2;  Rev.  8:  4. 


JOHANNINE  PRAGMATISM  341 

quarters  of  the  day  of  the  crucifixion  are  accurately  marked 
off,  probably  to  correspond  with  the  practice  of  the  church 
in  Rome  in  its  ritual  observance  of  the  day,*  makes  it  i)rac- 
tically  certain  that  the  Johanninc  "correction"  (Jn.  19:  14) 
which  has  given  so  much  trouble  to  the  harmonizers,  making 
"the  sixth  hour"  the  time  of  Pilate's  sentence  from  the 
judgment  seat,  instead  of  the  time  of  the  supernatural 
"darkness"  (Mk.  15:33),  corresponds  to  Ephesian  practice 
in  the  celebration.  For,  as  we  have  already  had  some  oc- 
casion to  sec  and  as  will  more  fully  appear  hereafter,  there 
was  radical  difference  between  Rome  and  Ephesus  on  this 
matter  of  "observing  the  Fast."  ^  On  the  other  hand,  we 
cannot  be  sure  that  any  such  significance  attaches  to  the 
notes  of  time  in  Jn.  1:29,  35,  41,  43;  not  even  to  that  of 
1 :  39,  so  greatly  affected  by  "defenders,"  that  "it  was  about 
the  tenth  hour"  when  Andrew  and  his  unnamed  companion 
first  came  into  relation  with  Jesus,  after  listening  to  the 
preaching  of  the  Baptist.  A  very  ancient  note  of  time  em- 
bodied in  the  "Western"  text  of  Acts  19:9  informs  us  that 
Paul's  preaching  "in  the  school  of  Tyrannus"  at  Ephesus 
was  "daily  from  the  fifth  to  the  tenth  hour."  The  gloss 
very  likely  gives  better  information  concerning  preaching 
sen'ices  in  Ejjhcsus  in  the  glossator's  own  time,  when  "the 
school  of  Tyrannus"  was  doubtless  still  pointed  to  with 
interest  as  the  cradle  of  the  local  church,  than  for  the  time  of 
Paul.  Yet  even  so  it  furnishes  at  least  a  curious  correspond- 
ence between  an  extremely  ancient  practice  of  the  Ejjhesian 
church,  and  the  conception  the  fourth  evangelist  has  formed 
of  the  gathering  and  dispersal  of  the  hearers  of  John  the 

1  The  proof  involves  the  similar,  though  less  careful  marking  off  of  the 
watches  of  the  preceding  night  (Mk.  14:  17,  37,  68)  and  of  the  resurrection 
day  (16:  2),  which  can  be  certainly  connected  with  the  vigil  {cf.  Mk.  14:  37), 
fast  and  breaking  of  bread  distinctive  of  Easter  observance.  See  Bacon, 
Beginnings  of  Gospel  Story,  ad  loc. 

-  See  Chapter  XVI. 


342  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Baptist.  Here  too,  however,  we  emphatically  draw  the  line 
of  self-restraint,  refusing  to  present  as  fact  what  our  ignor- 
ance necessarily  limits  to  the  domain  of  mere  conjectural 
possibility.  In  this  case,  complicated  as  it  is  by  omissions 
from  the  original  story,^  we  cannot  offer  more.  But  a  partial 
understanding  of  the  Johannine  "pragmatism"  is  all  that 
can  be  expected  of  the  modern  reader. 

The  "precision  in  detail"  of  the  note  of  time  of  Jn.  2:  18- 
22,  must  be  more  fully  considered  later.'  At  present  we 
merely  observe  that  a  symbolic  correspondence  is  explicitly 
established  by  the  evangehst  himself, 

"he  was  speaking  (in  the  saying  'Destroy  this  temple,'  etc.)  of  the 
temple  of  his  body." 

Jesus  is  probably  assumed  to  have  been  at  the  time  forty-six 
years  of  age,^  which  comes  near  to  one  form  of  Palestinian 
tradition,"*  and  to  have  given  as  "the  sign  of  the  Son  of  man" 
a  prediction  of  his  resurrection  "after  three  days."  ^  The 
author  calculates,  apparently,  that  the  consular  "year  of  the 
two  Gemini  "  (29  a.  d.),  early  fixed  as  that  of  the  crucifixion, 
was  coincidently  the  jubilee  year  (49th)  of  the  temple  and 
of  Jesus'  age  (c/.  Jn.  8:  57).  The  calculation  is  remarkably 
accurate;  the  apphcation  is  typically  haggadic.  So  with 
the  precision  of  the  "five  and  twenty  or  thirty  furlongs" 
(6:  19),  by  which  our  evangelist  interprets  Mark's  statement 
that  the  disciples'  boat,  when  Jesus  came  to  them  walking 

1  See  above,  p.  202. 

2  See  Chapter  XV. 

3  See  Loisy  ad  loc,  and  below,  Chapter  XV. 
*  Irenaeus,  Haer.  II,  xxii,  5;  cf.  Acts  7:  23. 

5  Jn.  2:  18-22  follows  the  Matthx-an  theory  of  the  Sign  from  Heaven 
(Mt.  12:  40;  cf.  Lk.  11:  30,  and  see  below,  p.  350,  note  i.),  locating  the  de- 
mand as  in  Mt.  21:  23-27,  i.  e.,  after  the  purging  of  the  temple.  Jn.  6:  30  ff. 
follows  the  Lucan  theor)'  (Lk.  11:  30),  locating  the  demand  as  in  Mk.  8:  11  f. 
The  duplication  with  different  points  of  view  corroborates  other  evidence  for 
the  later  addition  of  Jn.  2:  13-25.    See  Chapter  X\'III. 


JOHANNINE  PRAGMATISM  343 

on  the  waves,  was  *'in  the  miflst  of  the  sea."  This  certainly 
shows  an  api)ro.\imate  knowledge  of  the  dimensions  of  the 
lake  "of  Tiberias";  ^  but  its  motive  is  apologetic.  The  aim 
is  to  make  it  clearer  that  Jesus  had  surely  traversed  this 
distance  on  the  water,  and  that  the  disciples  had  not  sim[)ly 
lost  their  bearings  and  mistaken  a  hail  of  Jesus  from  the 
shore  for  his  miraculous  approach  upon  the  sea.  For  the 
same  reason  the  Syno])tics  are  "corrected"  in  the  matter  of 
Jesus'  entrance  into  the  boat.  He  merely  showed  himself 
to  them;  he  did  not  get  in,  but  traversed  the  whole  sea  by 
walking  on  the  waves  to  "the  land  whither  they  were  going" 
(verse  21),  which  was  "on  the  other  side  of  the  sea "  (verse  22). 
The  boat  too  was  miraculously  conveyed  "immediately"  to 
the  port  (verse  21),  but  Jesus  had  no  need  of  its  aid  in  crossing, 
and  did  not  avail  himself  of  it.- 

The  "precise  details"  in  the  dialogue  with  the  Samaritan 
Woman  (4:  1-45),  are  either  topographical,  displaying  real 
knowledge  of  the  locality,  as  in  the  case  just  cited  of  the 
dimensions  of  the  sea  "of  Tiberias,"  and  similarly  accounted 
for;  or  else  they  concern  the  dialogue  on  the  aboHtion  of 

1  C/.  the  estimate  of  distance  of  Bethany  from  Jerusalem  as  "fifteen 
furlongs,"  11:  18. 

2  A  symbolic  motive  perhaps  cooperates.  In  the  setting  (institution  of 
the  Agape — "  John"  adds  the  Eucharist)  the  coming  of  Jesus  to  the  terrified 
and  affrighted  disciples  in  the  beat,  who  think  they  "see  an  apparition," 
after  they  have  left  him  praying  alone  upon  the  mountain,  is  highly  sug- 
gestive of  the  separation  at  Gethsemane  followed  by  Jesus'  manifestation 
of  himself  in  the  resurrection  scenes  at  the  sea  of  Galilee,  when  he  is  taken 
for  "an  apparition."  The  correspondence  becomes  convincing  when  we 
further  consider  the  supplement  of  Mt.  14:  28-33,  which  parallels  Peter's 
offer  to  go  with  Jesus  "to  prison  and  death,"  his  failure,  restoration  by  the 
personal  intervention  of  Je.sus  (Lk.  24:  34),  and  stablishing  of  his  brethren 
in  the  faith  that  this  is  the  risen  Son  of  God  (Lk.  22:  32;  cf.  Mt.  14:  2,i)- 
Johannine  eschatoiog)',  however,  would  require,  to  carry  out  the  sym- 
bolism, that  Jesus  shoukl  not  "enter  into  the  boat"  (the  eirthly  Church), 
but  after  encouraging  them  by  a  brief  manifestation  await  them  "at  the 
land  whither  they  were  going." 


344  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

distinctions  of  locality  in  worship  secured  by  the  gift  of  the 
Spirit.^  The  general  topic  here  is  completely  foreign  to  the 
capacity  of  the  supposed  character,  but  the  details  of  argu- 
ment are  really  such  as  prove  knowledge — the  knowledge  of 
a  Jew  concerning  the  story  of  the  Samaritans  as  related  in 
II  Kings  17:  24-41,^  and  of  current  disputes  between  "Jews 
and  Samaritans."  But  what  has  such  knowledge  to  do  with 
the  "eye -witness,"  even  if  we  indulge  in  Professor  Sanday's 
poetic  fancies  concerning  the  "Son  of  thunder"  as  "a  gentle 
youth," 

"only  just  out  of  his  boyhood  and  with  something  of  the  fidelity 
of  a  dog  for  his  master,  who  does  not  like  to  be  long  out  of  his 
sight  "?3 

This,  doubtless,  is  to  explain  why  "John,"  without  any  in- 
timation of  the  sort  in  the  text,  is  made  to  stay  behind  when 
"the  disciples  were  gone  away  into  the  city  to  buy  food" 
(verse  8)  ?  Is  it  the  same  quality  which  enables  the  gentle 
youth  to  report  with  even  greater  "precision  of  detail"  what 
the  high  priest  Caiaphas  said  in  secret  meeting  of  the  con- 
spirators against  Jesus'  life  (11:47-53),  ^^  Pilate  in  his 
private  examinations  of  Jesus  (18:  28,  33-38;  19:8-11)? 

We  are  probably  supposed  to  make  the  same  tacit  assump- 
tion in  the  case  of  Nicodemus  (3:  1-2 1).  But  here  it  must 
be  supplemented  by  the  conjecture  that  through  the  lateness 
of  the  hour  the  eye-witness  was  gradually  overcome  with 
drowsiness;  for  while  Nicodemus'  entrance,  and  the  begin- 
ning of  the  colloquy  are  graphically  described,  the  colloquy 

1  Cf.  Eph.  2  :  13-18. 

2  It  is  sometimes  objected  to  the  symbolic  interpretation  of  the  reference 
"Thou  hast  had  five  husbands,  and  he  whom  thou  now  hast  is  not  thy 
husband,"  as  suggested  by  II  Kings  17:  30-32,  41,  that  the  false  gods  of  the 
Samaritans  here  spoken  of  are  not  five  in  number,  but  six.  But  Josephus 
(^Ant.  IX,  xiv,  3)  shows  that  whatever  our  count  may  be  the  contemporary 
count  was  "five"  {irivre  Oeoiis). 

3  Sanday,  Criticism,  p  86. 


JOHANNINE  PRAGMATISM  345 

impcrcci)libly  shades  off  into  a  solilo(iuy  of  the  evangelist, 
while  Nicodemus  is  left  to  evaporate  from  the  stage. 

But  the  Raising  of  Lazarus  in  its  depiction  of  "the  different 
behavior  of  the  two  sisters  and  their  Jewish  sympathizers" 
and  especially  its  reference  to  Jesus'  emotion  (11:33-38), 
is  supposed  to  exhibit  in  peculiar  degree 

"the  recollections  of  one  who  had  himself  been  present  at  the 
events  of  the  day,  and  who  had  moved  freely  to  and  fro,  and  very 
probably  talked  them  over  after  the  day  was  done."  ' 

Strangest  of  all,  this  preeminently  unreal  of  the  unreal 
narratives  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  supposed  to  exhibit  more 
graphically  than  the  Synoptics  the  human  sympatliy  ( !)  of 
Jesus. 

The  "notes  of  time  and  place"  are  certainly  present 
[10:40  (Bethany  beyond  Jordan);  11:  i,  6,  17,  18].  Un- 
fortunately for  the  defenders'  argument  the  motive  also 
for  which  they  are  introduced  is  made  superabundantly 
clear  (verses  4,  6,  11,  17).  Jesus  purposely  waited  where  he 
was,  paying  no  attention  to  the  piteous  appeal  of  the  family 
that  he  "loved,"  until  he  knew  (by  his  omniscience,  verse  it) 
that  Lazarus  was  dead.  He  waited  until  his  arrival  "to 
awake  him  out  of  sleep,"  should  be  "four  days"  after  burial, 
when  the  setting  in  of  decay  (verse  39)  should  have  left  no 
possibility  of  objection  such  as  might  be  urged  against  the 
Synoptic  raisings  from  the  dead.^  This  Being  who  in  the 
interest  of  ajjologetic  proof  completely  disregards  the  feelings 
of  the  stricken  family,  is  at  the  utmost  possible  remove  from 
the  humane  and  kindly  Jesus  of  Synoptic  story.  For  the 
Markan  Jesus  is  distracted  between  his  instinctive  abhor- 
rence of  the  role  of  the  common  miracle-monger  and  exorciser, 
and  the  compassion  he  feels  for  the  distressed  and  importu- 

>  Ibid.,  p.  88. 

2  Three  days  marked  the  limit  of  time  during  which  according  to  rabbinic 
belief  the  soul  hovered  near  its  former  abode,  seeking  to  reanimate  the  clay. 


346  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

nate  multitude  (Mk.  i:  21-45).  ^^^  difference  in  represen- 
tation is  quite  intentional  on  the  part  of  the  fourth  evangelist. 
We  know  from  what  Celsus  says  of  Jewish  predecessors  who 
before  his  time  had  ridiculed  the  doctrine  of  the  divinity  of 
Jesus,  that  there  had  been  no  failure  on  their  part  to  point 
out  the  incongruity  of  a  divine  Being  walking  about  among 
the  lower  classes  in  obscure  GaHlee,  distributing  the  favors 
of  his  miraculous  omnipotence  at  their  soHcitation,  to  "Peter's 
wife's  mother"  or  to  "a  few  sick  folk."  "Correction"  of 
Mark's  account  of  the  "beginning  of  miracles"  was  impera- 
tive on  many  accounts,  as,  e.  g.,  their  restriction  to  Gahlee, 
their  too  close  relation  to  the  works  of  the  "strolUng  Jews, 
exercisers"  in  bad  repute  at  Ephesus  (Acts  19:  13),  and 
other  objectionable  features.  But  supremely  inconsistent 
with  the  conception  of  an  incarnate  Logos  acceptable  to 
Stoic  thought  was  the  Synoptic  suggestion  of  a  swaying  of 
Jesus  from  his  original  purpose  by  the  importunity  of  those 
who  sought  his  miraculous  aid.  Hence  in  the  Fourth  Gospel 
the  miracles  are  always  volunteered  by  Jesus  (5:6;  6:  5,  6; 
9:  1-6),  He  never  yields  to  importunity.  He  repels  it  almost 
harshly,  even  in  the  person  of  his  own  mother  (2 : 4),  or  of 
a  "royal  officer"  (4:  48),  or  of  his  dearest  friends  (11 :  4-6). 
Explicit  pains  are  taken  to  show  that  the  appearance  of 
yielding  created  by  Synoptic  story  is  fallacious.  Everything 
had  been  foreseen  and  fixed  in  advance  to  its  appropriate 
"hour,"  especially  Jesus'  own  fate,  which,  as  we  have  seen,* 
he  is  so  far  from  struggling  against,  as  rather  to  compel  its 
unwilling  agents  to  their  task.  Hence  acts  of  apparent  yield- 
ing to  importunity  are  carefully  pointed  out  by  the  fourth 
evangelist  to  have  been  predetermined  by  Jesus  and  fixed 
for  their  exact  place  and  "hour"  in  the  scheme  of  "mani- 
festation of  his  glory."  Thus  it  is  with  the  beginning  of 
miracles  (2:4,  11);  thus  with  the  man  born  bhnd  "that  the 

1  Above,  p.  3i2f. 


JOHANNINE  PRAGMATISM  347 

works  of  God  should  be  made  manifest  in  him"  (9:3-5); 
thus  with  the  raising  of  Lazarus  (11:4,  9-15),  where  even 
the  prayer  by  the  grave  is  not  a  real  prayer,  but  uttered  "for 
the  sake  of  those  that  stand  by"  (verses  42),  like  the  prayer 
in  regard  to  Jesus'  own  fate  and  its  answer  (12:30).  It  is 
all  a  matter  of  the  predetermined  "hour,"  particularly  when 
the  question  is  raised  of  Jesus'  own  safety  (7 :  30;  8:  20;  1 1 :  9). 
Yes,  precision  in  detail  and  graj^hic  description  abound — 
where  it  serves  the  doctrinal  or  apologetic  purpose. 

On  the  other  hand,  those  who  think  that  the  Jesus  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  is  lacking  in  sympathy  in  this  and  similar 
scenes  simply  fail  to  make  use  of  the  key  which  the  evangeHst 
supplies  in  his  prologue  (i :  14).  This  Jesus,  too,  overflows 
with  sympathy;  only  it  is  not  and  cannot  be  human  sym- 
pathy. It  must  be  supcr-hwrnoxx,  divine,  the  sympathy  of 
an  omniscient  Being,  who  "knew  all  things  that  were  coming 
upon  him"  (18:4),  and  "needed  not  that  anyone  should 
bear  witness  concerning  man,  because  he  himself  knew  what 
was  in  man"  (2:25).  Without  the  application  of  this  key 
the  depiction  of  Jesus'  emotion  in  the  scene  of  the  raising 
of  Lazarus,  an  intentionally  prominent  feature  of  the  story, 
becomes  a  hopeless  enigma.  With  it,  all  is  consistent  and 
intelligible. 

Why  does  Jesus  remain  "two  days  in  the  place  where 
he  was"  in  disregard  of  the  sisters'  appeal,  and  then  say 
"Lazarus  is  dead,  and  /  am  glad  for  your  sakes  that  I  was 
not  there"?  Why,  after  explaining  to  the  twelve  concerning 
his  "hour"  and  returning  to  Judea  (11:  7-16)  does  he  meet 
the  tears  and  remonstrances  of  Martha  and  Mary  only  with 
the  general  doctrines  of  present  eternal  Ufe  and  future  resur- 
rection "in  the  last  day,"  reserving  his  own  "groaning"  and 
tears  for  the  spectacle  of  Mary  "weej)ing  and  the  Jews  also 
weeping  with  her"?  The  Jews  when  they  saw  Jesus'  tears 
at  the  scpulcher  said,  "Behold,  how  he  loved  him."     But 


348  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

"the  Jews"  in  this  Gospel  are  ahvays  those  who  misunder- 
stand and  misrepresent  the  Lord;  and  the  objection  imme- 
diately raised  by  "others"  to  this  explanation  of  Jesus'  emo- 
tion (verse  37;  c}.  7:  25,  26,  31,  etc.)  is  in  reahty  fatal  to  it, 
and  is  so  intended.  The  evangelist s  explanation  of  Jesus' 
emotion  requires  us  to  remember,  first,  that  his  Jesus  is  an 
onmiscient  Being  descended  from  heavenly  glory  (3:i2f., 
31  f.,  17:  5),  to  whom  the  recalling  of  a  beloved  friend  from 
Paradise  is  a  calamity  only  admissible  because  of  the  hard- 
ness of  heart  of  Jews,  who  "except  they  see  signs  and  won- 
ders will  not  beheve"  (4:48).  We  must  remember,  second, 
that  Mk.  7:  34;  8:  12  had  already  set  the  example  of  relating 
this  "sighing"  and  "groaning"  of  Jesus  at  the  necessity 
created  by  Jewish  "hardness of  heart"  for  his  "signs."  The 
Jesus  of  "John"  is  "glad"  when  blind  mortals  weep.  Jesus 
weeps  when  because  of  human  unbeHcf  a  friend  that  "slept" 
and  was  "saved"  (cT(o6i]aeTaL)  must  be  "awaked  out  of  his 
sleep"  and  return  to  this  vale  of  tears  (verses  11-13). 

The  story  of  Lazarus  is  a  typical  instance  of  Johannine 
"pragmatism"  and  double  meaning.  The  writer  dwells 
on  minute  and  apparently  precise  details  for  a  didactic  and 
theoretical  purpose,  while  in  the  w4der  view  the  scene  as  a 
whole  is  impossible  to  frame  into  the  known  history.  The 
lesson  is  lofly,  and  (from  the  theological  standpoint)  a 
needful  "  correction  "  of  the  too  familiar  and  naive  repre- 
sentation of  the  Synoptists.  The  interventions  of  the  di- 
vine omnipotence  are  not  evoked  by  the  importunities  of 
friendship  and  personal  solicitation.  They  answer  to  the 
requirements  of  the  plan  of  God  in  "  manifesting  his  glory." 
This  doctrine  too  has  its  place  in  our  times  of  sorrow.  The 
Christian  world  instinctively  and  rightly  turns  to  Jesus' 
tender  expostulation  with  Martha's  tears,  and  with  the  timid 
suggestion  of  both  sisters  that  a  miracle  should  be  wrought 
to  alleviate  their  individual  sorrow,  as  among  the  loftiest  and 


JOHANNINE  PRAGMATISM  349 

purest  expressions  of  Christian  faith  in  face  of  bereavement. 
But  we  do  injustice  to  this  Gospel  when  we  try  to  force  it  to 
our  demand  for  the  "historical."  It  is  not  historical,  but 
"spiritual."  The  story  of  the  Raisinj^  of  Lazarus,  absolutely 
excluded  as  it  is  by  Synoptic  tradition,  should  suffice  of  itself 
alone  to  settle  this  point  once  and  for  all. 

We  have  not  space  to  discuss  the  kindred  scene  of  Mary 
Magdalen  at  the  empty  tomb  (20:  11-18),  similarly  touching 
and  beautiful,  similarly  didactic,  similarly  unhistorical.  For 
how  is  it  concei\able  historically,  that  the  Beloved  disciple, 
after  being  brought  to  the  tomb  by  Mary,  entering  in  with 
Peter,  seeing  and  believing  (verse  8),  should  "go  away  unto 
his  own  home"  (verse  10)  without  so  much  as  a  word  of  hope 
either  to  Peter,  or  to  Mary  who  had  brought  them  there  for 
an  explanation  of  the  riddle,  and  who  now  remained  "with- 
out, at  the  tomb,  weeping"?  When  indeed  has  the  Beloved 
disciple  any  other  role  than  that  of  the  deus  ex  machina? 

Johannine  "pragmatism"  elaborates  detail  (for  a  purpose) 
and  ignores  the  larger  nexus  of  history.  The  "atomistic" 
treatment  of  "defenders"  follows  it.  But  the  instant  we 
turn  to  the  larger  outline  of  Jesus'  career,  considered  as  part 
of  human  history,  even  "defenders"  hasten  to  acknowledge 
that  only  the  Synoptics  present  an  intelligible  sequence  of 
events,  and  that  the  fourth  evangeHst  is  largely  indifferent 
to  consistency  of  cause  and  effect  or  place  and  time. 

When  we  compare  Mark's  Baptist  with  the  older  material 
embodied  in  the  Sayings  of  Q  we  see  already  a  decline  from 
historicity  in  the  interest  of  Christian  apologetic.  In  the 
Sayings  of  Jesus  the  Baptist  still  belongs  to  the  older  dis- 
pensation, a  prophet  of  pro])hets,  warning  a  sinful  people  to 
prepare  to  meet  its  God.  His  baptism,  accepted  by  pub- 
licans and  sinners  as  a  means  of  grace  and  token  of  forgive- 
ness, but  disdained  by  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  was  a  sign 
"from  heaven"  of  the  Day  of  Jehovah,  as  Jonah's  preach- 


350  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

ing  had  been  a  sign  to  the  Ninevites.^  But  aside  from  his 
warning  to  moral  repentance  in  view  of  impending  judgment 
reiterating  the  call  of  an  Elijah,  an  Amos,  or  an  Isaiah,  and 
his  impersonal  proclamation  of  the  coming  Executioner  of 
God's  judgment,  the  Baptist  of  Q  is  not  concerned  with  the 
work  of  Jesus.  Up  to  the  very  end  (Mt.  11:2=  Lk.  7 :  18  ff.) 
he  attains  only  to  the  distant  hope,  as  he  hears  in  prison 
"the  works  of  Christ,"  that  this  may  possibly  be  "he  that 
should  come,"  and  is  consoled  by  the  non-committal  reply, 
"Blessed  is  he  that  shall  not  be  stumbled  in  me."  In  Mark's 
fervent  apologetic  nearly  all  the  independent  significance  of 
the  Baptist's  reformatory  work  is  stripped  away.  Mark  re- 
cords no  utterance  of  his  save  the  prediction  of  the  Greater 
than  he  that  should  "baptize  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  fire." 
His  significance  in  Markan  story  is  not  that  he  proclaimed 
a  baptism  of  repentance  unto  forgiveness  of  sins  to  pubh- 
cans  and  sinners,  but  that,  according  to  the  Jewish  expecta- 
tion that  Elias  would  come  to  anoint  the  Messiah  and  make 
him  known  to  himself  and  to  Israel,^  he  had  baptized  Jesus, 
and  thus  "prepared  the  way  of  the  Lord."  ^  In  their  com- 
binations of  Mark  with  Q  Matthew  and  Luke  have  each 
introduced  slight  modifications  to  still  further  reduce  the 
figure  of  the  Baptist  from  its  independent  significance  toward 
that  of  forerunner  of  Jesus,  pure  and  simple.  Do  the  "cor- 
rections" of  the  fourth  evangelist,  quondam  disciple  of  the 
Baptist  as  he  is  himself  supposed  to  be,  tend  to  restore  the 
distorted  outlines?     Far  from  it.    In  the  Fourth  Gospel  the 

1  Mt-  21:  23-32.  The  "sign  of  Jonah"  in  the  parallel  (Q)  narrative  of 
the  Demand  for  a  Sign  in  Mt.  12:  38-45  =  Lk.  11:  29-32  is  neither  as  our 
first  evangelist  assumes,  the  resurrection  (Mt.  12:  40),  nor,  as  our  third 
interprets  (Lk.  11:  30),  Jesus'  own  preaching,  which  is  compared  with  the 
"wisdom"  sought  by  the  Queen  of  Sheba.  It  is  the  warning  message  of 
John  the  Baptist 

2  Justin  Martyr,  Dial  with  Trypho,  viii  and  xlix. 

3  See  Beginnings  of  Gospel  Story,  ad  loc. 


JOHANNINE  PRAGMATISM  351 

theoretic  substitution  is  carried  to  a  much  greater  extreme. 
The  Baptist  is  stripped  of  the  last  vestige  of  his  historical, 
independent,  significance;  absolutely  nothing  remains  but 
the  function  of  forerunner  and  herald  of  the  Christ.  There 
is  no  warning  to  flee  from  the  wrath  to  come;  there  are  no 
"publicans  and  sinners";  nothing  but  disciples  whom  John 
points  to  "the  Lamb  of  God,"  and  representatives  of  the 
Sanhedrin,  whose  questions  elucidate  the  true  significance 
of  John's  calling  and  of  the  rite  he  practices.  Even  this  rite 
is  not  a  "baptism  of  repentance  unto  forgiveness  of  sins." 
There  is  none  such  save  Christian  baptism,  and  forgiveness 
cannot  be  proclaimed  until  after  the  sacrifice  of  the  Lamb 
of  God.  Until  after  the  resurrection  the  world  is  "yet  in  its 
sins"  (r/.  I  Cor.  15:17).  The  proclamation,  accordingly, 
must  be  reserved  for  the  Commission  of  the  apostles  after 
the  resurrection  (20:  22  f.).  John  is  not  even  Elias  (i:  21). 
The  miracles  expected  to  characterize  this  apocalyptic  figure 
(Mk.  6:14)  are  noted  as  wanting  (10:41).  The  reader 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  even  left  in  doubt  whether  John 
baptized  Jesus  at  all.  Certainly  Jesus  was  not  in  need  of 
revelations  regarding  his  own  nature  and  calling,  and  the 
revelation  which  for  this  reason  is  transferred  to  the  Baptist 
(i :  31-34)  may,  or  may  not,  be  on  occasion  of  his  baptizing 
Jesus.  According  to  this  Gospel  the  Baptist  was  simply  a 
"lamp"  given  to  Israel  to  guide  it  to  Jesus  (5:33-36);  the 
rite  he  employed  was  borrowed  from  the  new  dispensation 
as  a  predictive  type  only,  and  was  totally  devoid  of  signifi- 
cance except  as  a  prophetic,  anticipatory  token,  witnessing 
to  Israel  of  the  ])erson  and  work  of  the  Giver  of  the  Holy 
Ghost   (i ;  25-34). 

Moreover,  Jesus  does  not  come  forward  as  a  successor  of 
John.  He  begins  his  work  independently,  before  John 
is  shut  up  in  prison,  though  out  of  consideration  for  the 
disposition  of  "the  Pharisees"  to  draw-  invidious  compari- 


352  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

sons,  he  withdraws  from  public  notice  into  the  obscurity  of 
Galilee  (4:  1-3,  43-45).  The  whole  Markan  scene  of  the 
calling  of  the  first  disciples  at  the  Sea  of  GaHlee  "after  John 
was  delivered  up"  when  Jesus  had  ralHed  the  scattered  fol- 
lowing of  the  imprisoned  prophet  (Mk.  i :  14-20)  is  antic- 
ipated and  its  significance  nullified.  There  was,  says  this 
Gospel,  an  earlier  calling,  at  which  Andrew  and  Peter  with 
several  others  had  not  merely  laid  aside  their  nets  to  become 
with  Jesus  "fishers  of  men,"  but  had  been  indoctrinated  by 
the  Baptist  himself  with  the  Pauhne  conception  of  Christ 
as  the  atoning  "Lamb  of  God."  They  had  recognized  him 
as  Messiah,  as  King  of  Israel,  as  Son  of  man  and  omniscient 
Searcher  of  hearts.  Andrew  had  anticipated  Peter's  Con- 
fession, and  Peter  himself  had  already  at  this  time  received 
from  Jesus  the  name  betokening  his  faith  (i:  29-31). 

Is  this  history;  or  is  it  apologetics  under  the  forms  of  mid- 
rash?  The  whole  trend  of  debate  regarding  the  relation  of 
Jesus  and  his  work  to  that  of  the  Baptist  proves  that  it  is 
the  latter.  If  the  revelation  of  the  Messiahship  be  thus 
placed  at  the  beginning,  or  rather  before  the  beginning  of 
Jesus'  career,  instead  of  at  its  very  close,  if  three  years  be- 
fore the  conspiracy  of  the  priests  against  him  Jesus  had  al- 
ready thrown  down  the  gauntlet  by  an  affront  to  their  au- 
thority in  the  temple  and  at  that  time  already  had  uttered 
the  saying  brought  up  against  him  at  his  trial  ( Jn.  2 :  13-19), 
the  whole  course  of  events  becomes  unintelligible. 

This,  then,  is  the  unhistorical  larger  outHne  at  the  expense 
of  which  we  obtain  the  "precise  details  of  the  eye-witness" 
in  the  opening  scenes  of  the  Gospel.  We  gain  at  best  an 
idylHc  picture  of  disciples  drawn  to  Jesus  by  the  Baptist's 
"witness,"  including  the  item  that  the  preaching  closed  "at 
the  tenth  hour."  We  lose — the  last  remnant  of  a  historical 
conception  of  the  relation  of  the  great  reformatory  move- 
ment from  which  that  of  Jesus  took  its  rise,  the  last  shred 


JOHANNINE  PRAGMATISM  353 

of  relation  to  historical  cause  and  cfTcct  in  the  drama  of  his 
career. 

The  case  is  not  otherwise  with  Johannine  "pragmatism" 
elsewhere.  Of  the  anachronistic  and  impossible  dialogue 
with  the  Samaritan  woman  we  have  already  spoken,  and  of 
the  Raising  of  Lazarus.  Drummond  himself  completely 
abandons  the  attempt  to  dovetail  the  latter  into  the  Synoptic 
narrative,  and  acknowledges  it  a  "fiction,"  though  he  still 
insists  that  the  author  was  an  eye-witness — one  who  has  the 
characteristic,  unfortunate  among  eye-witnesses,  of  pre- 
ferring fiction  to  fact.  As  the  whole  tragedy  of  Jesus'  death  is 
made  to  hang  upon  this  supreme  prodigy  (11:45-53),  the 
forgetfulness  of  all  three  Synoptists  in  failing  to  mention  it, 
and  assigning  the  course  of  events  in  Jerusalem  instead  to 
Jesus'  coUision  with  the  priestly  authorities  in  the  temple, 
is  indeed  somewhat  difficult  to  account  for.  It  seems  almost 
as  surprising  that  in  the  scene  of  the  Betrayal  in  Gethsemane, 
minutely  described  by  all  three,  none  should  have  noticed 
the  "detail"  that  the  commander  of  the  Roman  garrison  of 
Jerusalem  was  present  with  his  entire  cohort  of  600  soldiers, 
and  that  upon  Jesus'  mere  offer  of  himself  with  the  announce- 
ment, "I  am  he  " 

"they  went  backward  and  fell  to  the  ground.  Then  asked  he 
them  again.  Whom  seek  ye?  And  they  said,  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 
Jesus  answered,  I  told  you  that  I  am  he;  if  therefore  ye  seek  me, 
let  these  go  their  way."  * 

Thus  the  disciples  owed  their  escape  not  to  a  cowardly  de- 
sertion and  flight,  but  to  Jesus'  intercession.  That  nothing 
of  these  somewhat  remarkable  phenomena  was  observed  by 
other  eye-witnesses  seems  extraordinary;  but  it  may  truth- 
fully be  replied  that  reporters  who  could  overlook  the  Rais- 
ing of  Lazarus  could  o\-erlook  anything. 

1  Jn.  18:  6-8. 
Fourth  Gospel — 23 


354  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Is  it  still  needful  to  return  and  point  out  that  the  "precise 
details"  of  the  scene  of  the  feeding  of  the  multitude  (6:  1-14) 
are  mere  atoms  in  a  mass  of  unreaHty?  Is  it  the  better 
knowledge  of  an  eye-witness  which  makes  Jesus  ascend  the 
mountain  in  verse  3  and  reascend  in  verse  15  without  de- 
scending meantime;  or  is  it  a  slip  of  erroneous  dependence 
on  the  Synoptic  model  ?  ^  Is  it  historicity,  or  theory  combined 
with  literary  dependence,  which  makes  Jesus  propose  to  feed 
the  multitude  as  soon  as  they  appear  in  sight,  before  they 
have  even  had  an  opportunity  to  become  hungry  ? 

We  have  seen  already  that  the  appearances  of  the  Be- 
loved disciple  are  outside  the  framework  of  history,  and  we 
are  not  now  concerned  with  those  more  general  characteris- 
tics of  the  Gospel  which  determine  its  real  relation  to  its 
predecessors.  The  fourth  evangelist  suppresses  entirely  from 
the  work  of  Jesus  all  reference  to  his  exorcism  of  evil  spirits, 
imitating  in  this  respect  the  silence  of  Paul;  he  substitutes 
for  the  Champion  of  pubhcans  and  sinners  and  the  little  ones 
of  Galilee,  in  their  right  to  a  share  by  repentance  and  faith 
in  the  kingdom  of  their  Father,  a  theological  Hypostasis, 
who  "manifests  his  glory"  by  prodigies  of  omnipotence,  and 
debates  with  "the  Jews"  the  questions  of  his  own  divinity 
as  propounded  in  the  PauHne  system.  But  of  these  broader 
traits  we  must  speak  later.  We  are  dealing  for  the  present 
only  with  the  Johannine  "pragmatism,"  endeavoring  to 
show  that  its  "details — apparently  precise — •"  of  place  and 
time  and  circumstance,  are  not,  as  the  "atomistic"  method 
maintains,  a  mark  of  the  historical  eye-witness,  but  when 
more  carefully  studied  in  relation  to  contemporary  practice, 
and  in  relation  to  a  survey  of  the  Gospel  and  its  scenes  as 
wholes,  have  almost  a  contrary  character.  If  further  evi- 
dence be  needed  we  must  refer  to  Schmiedel.  "  Constructive  " 
criticism  is  more  to  our  taste  than  "destructive."    And  yet 

1  See  Schmiedel,  op.  cit.  p.  51. 


JOHANNINE  PRAGMATISM  355 

what  "defence  of  the  Fourth  Gospel"  is  so  cryingly  needful 
in  our  day  as  that  which  resists  the  attempt  to  force  its  lofty 
and  beautiful  mysticism  into  the  service  of  "the  external  and 
bodily  things,"  and  which  demands  that  "spiritual"  gospels, 
Hke  other  "spiritual"  things,  shall  be  "spiritually  discerned." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

JOHANNINE    TREATMENT    OF    SYNOPTIC    MATERIAL 

We  may  pass  over  very  rapidly  Professor  Sanday's  re- 
maining items  of  internal  evidence  for  Johannine  authorship, 
none  of  which  has  any  bearing  on  the  question  whether  the 
writer  was  an  eye-witness;  because  we  fully  agree  that  he 
was  a  Jew,  and  a  teacher  of  ripe  years.  As  such  he  could 
hardly  fail  to  be  famihar  with 

"  (i)  the  pilgrimages  to  Jerusalem  and  the  Jewish  feasts;  (ii)  the 
detailed  ceremonies  connected  with  those  feasts;  (iii)  the  temple 
itself;  (iv)  the  state  of  sects  and  parties;  (v)  the  Messianic  expec- 
tation." 1 

The  mere  overthrow  of  the  material  temple  (whose  ruined 
courts  were  of  course  not  obliterated)  and  cessation  of  the 
ceremonial  in  practice,  was,  as  we  well  know,  very  far  indeed 
from  removing  them  from  the  arena  of  Jewish  and  Jewish- 
Christian  debate.  Not  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  alone  and 
the  connected  Epistle  of  Barnabas,  but  the  entire  Talmudic 
literature  abundantly  attests  how  the  temple  "on  paper,"  a 
legal  and  ceremonial  system  whose  only  basis  was  the  Torah 
of  Moses,  some  day,  in  some  sense,  to  be  restored,  took 
the  place  of  the  actual  temple  cult  almost  immediately  after 
the  catastrophe  of  70  a.  d.  Indeed,  so  thoroughly  had  the 
real  religious  life  of  Israel  become  already  detached  from 
the  hierocratic  system  of  priesthood  and  temple,  and  rebuilt 
itself  around  that  of  scribe  and  synagogue,  that  the  downfall 
of  the  oppressive  and  arrogant  Sadducean  priest  nobility 
was  felt  rather  as  a  relief.    The  overthrow  of  the  priest  was 

1  Criticism,  p.  117. 
356 


TREATMENT  OF  SYNOPTICS  357 

the  exaltation  of  the  rabbi.  Legalism  attained  its  zenith 
when  the  Sanhedrin  fell,  and  the  great  Synagogue  of  Jamnia 
and  Tiberias  took  its  plaee.  It  is  this  period  which  gives 
birth  to  the  hterature  of  "colloquies,"  "debates,"  "dispu- 
tations" or  "dialogues"  between  Christians  and  Jews  of 
which  so  many  examples  remain ;  ^  and  all  of  these  turn  upon 
the  interpretation  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the  doctrine  of 
the  divine  "Sonship"  of  Christ.  On  the  Jewish  side  we  have 
a  few  echoes  from  Talmudic  sources '  reporting  more  direct 
and  personal  coUision,  in  which  the  same  distinctive  Christian 
doctrine  is  connected  especially  with  the  Christian  sacrament 
and  Christian  thaumaturgy. 

A  Hellenistic  Jew  and  teacher  of  ripe  years  in  Asia  could 
also  hardly  have  failed  to  make  at  least  once  the  pilgrimage 
to  Jerusalem,  and  if  a  Christian  woukl  surely  have  extended 
his  journey  to  Nazareth  and  the  sea  "of  Tiberias."  Even 
without  the  occasion  of  Jewish  descent,  Mehto  of  Sardis 
about  the  middle  of  the  second  century  takes  this  journey 
with  the  purpose  expressly  in  mind  of  securing  trustworthy 
information  about  the  Old  Testament.  How  Papias  felt 
about  the  seat  of  historical  tradition  we  have  already  seen.-"' 

We  have  no  occasion,  then,  to  do  more  than  supplement 
Professor  Sanday's  heljjful  reasoning  on  the  evangelist's 
noteworthy  interest  in  Jewish  Pilgrimages,  including  their 
rites  of  "purification."  ^    We  only  demur  to  his  assumption 

1  See,  e.  g.,  the  Dialogue  of  Jason  and  Papiscits,  Dialogue  -wi/h  Trypho 
(Justin  Martyr),  etc.;  and  cf.  McGiffert,  "Christian  Polemics  against  the 
Jews,"  in  Presb.  Rei'iew,  July,  1888. 

2  See  Herford,  Christianity  in  Talmud  and  Midrash,  1903. 

3  Chapter  IV. 

*  The  observation  (p.  120)  on  the  frequency  of  "allusions  to  the  laws 
(practice?)  of  Levitical  purity"  is  just,  and  significant.  One  can  realize 
how  conspicuously  practices  relating  to  sabbaths  and  lustrations  would 
stand  out,  especially  after  the  destruction  of  the  sacrificial  system,  as  dis- 
tinctive of  Judaism,  by  noting  (i)  that  somewhat  contemptuous  char- 
acterizations of  Mark  (Mk.  2:  23-3:  6;  7:  1-15;  10:  1-12;  12:38-40),  es- 


358  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

that  "a  pious  Jew" — by  which  Professor  Sanclay  means  the 
Friend  of  publicans  and  sinners,  whose  disregard  of  lustra- 
tions, fasts  and  sabbaths  was  the  chief  cause  of  Pharisaic 
complaint  against  him — -would  not 

"  neglect  to  attend  the  feasts  for  so  long  a  time,  and  in  the  course 
of  a  religious  mission  addressed  directly  to  his  countrymen."  ^ 

The  fourth  evangelist  also  seems  to  have  thought  it  "im- 
probable," and  doubtless  for  the  same  a  priori  reasons. 
This  is  another  respect  in  which  his  "pious  Jew"  differs 
from  the  Synoptic  leader  of  Gahlean  insurgents  against  the 
religion  of  "scribes  and  Pharisees." 

As  to  Professor  Sanday's  quotation  from  Chwolson  apropos 
of  "Ceremonies"  (p.  121)  to  the  effect  that 

"After  the  destruction  of  the  Temple  all  the  regulations  about 
cleanness  and  uncleanness,  which  were  closely  connected  with 
the  sacrificial  system,  fell  into  disuse" 

we  simply  beg  leave  to  omit  the  commas,  after  which  the 
statement  will  be  approximately  true.  As  to  the  evangelist's 
famiharity  with  features  of  "the  Temple" — or  its  ruins — 
we  have  no  objection  to  make,  though  it  is  instructive  to 
compare  the  recent  apocryphal  fragment  of  dialogue  of 
second  (or  third  ?)  century  origin  between  Jesus  and  the 
high  priest  concerning  purification  in  the  Temple,  found  by 
Grenfell  and  Hunt.  Its  "precise  details"  are  vouched  for 
by  excellent  scholars.^ 

pecially  7 :  3-4;  (2)  the  references  of  Juvenal  and  other  classic  authors; 
(3)  the  almost  entire  preoccupation  of  the  Talmud  with  questions  of  "puri- 
fication" of  "feasts"  and  of  "  sabbaths." 

iP.  118. 

2  See  especially  L.  Elau,  "Das  neue  Evangelienfragment  von  Oxyrhyn- 
chos"  in  Zts.f.  ntl.  Wiss.  IX  (1908),  pp.  204-215.  The  statement  (p.  215) 
that  "ritual  lustrations  and  baths  belong  to  the  weightiest  portions  of  the 
Halacha"  with  what  follows,  is  peculiarly  instructive,  in  view  of  Pro- 
fessor Sanday's  quotation  from  Chwolson. 


TREATMENT  OF  SYNOPTICS  359 

As  to  "Sects  and  Parties,"  those  ivhich  arc  of  concern  jor 
llie  second  century  debate  heticeen  Church  and  Synagogue  are 
certainly  prominent  in  the  Fourth  Gospel.  Wc  have  already 
mentioned  the  "disciples  of  John"  as  of  special  interest  to 
the  church  in  Ephesus.  There  is  but  one  social  element 
which  completely  disappears  from  view,  and  that  is — the 
"publicans  and  sinners!"  Instead  of  figuring  as  their  cham- 
pion against  the  religious  oligarchy,  as  in  the  Synoptics, 
Jesus  is  now  simply  the  champion  of  "believers"  (in  his 
divinity)  against  "the  Jews."  As  for  the  poKtical  situation. 
Professor  Sanday  regards  the  effort  of  Jn,  18-19  to  throw  all 
the  blame  for  Jesus'  fate  on  "the  Jews"  and  make  the  Ro- 
man power  appear  only  to  be  unwillingly  led,  by  misrepre- 
sentation or  otherwise,  to  the  crime  of  Pilate  ^  as  a  "  singularly 
fine  characterization."  It  is  at  least  in  line  with  the  tendency 
more  and  more  strongly  marked  from  the  earliest  Synoptic 
gospel  down  to  the  second  century  apologists.  In  the  third 
gospel  and  Acts  it  is  very  conspicuous;  in  Jn.  18-19  it  is  per- 
haps a  little  more  conspicuous  still.  In  the  Apologies  of 
Justin  and  his  contemporaries  it  culminates. 

But  the  fourth  evangelist  shows  acquaintance  with  "Jew- 
ish Ideas  and  Dialectic."  It  certainly  would  be  an  excep- 
tional author  of  Dialogues  against  the  Jews  in  the  second 
century  who  did  not.  We  are  compelled,  however,  at  this 
point  to  take  very  emphatic  exception  to  the  following  state- 
ments, which  seem  to  us  so  completely  to  invert  the  histori- 
cal fact  that  we  are  at  a  loss  to  account  for  them  in  a  writer 
famihar  with  such  second  century  debate: 

"  'Thou  art  a  Samaritan  and  hast  a  devil'  'Abraham  is  dead 
and  the  prophets.'  These  are  exactly  the  things  that  would  be 
said  and  that  we  may  be  sure  were  said.  (When?)  But  I  am  not 
satisfied  with  the  hypothesis  that  the  author  who  wrote  them  was 

1  See  Jn.  i8:  28-19:  16,  especially  19:  11.  "He  that  delivered  me  unto 
thee"  probably  refers  to  Caiaphas. 


360  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

a  Jew  of  Palestine.    I  believe  that  he  was,  and  must  have  been, 
an  actual  contemporary  and  eye-witness  of  what  he  is  recording. 

"The  same  conclusion  forces  itself  upon  us  all  through  the 
next  chapter  (Jn.  9),  which  is  steeped  in  Jewish  ideas  and  cus- 
toms; and  those  not  Jewish  ideas  and  customs  in  the  abstract,  but 
in  direct  and  close  connexion  with  the  Jewish  controversy  as  it 
existed  in  the  time  of  our  Lord  and  centring  in  his  person.'^  ^ 

We  find  it  impossible  to  obtain  any  other  sense  from 
Professor  Sanday's  language  here  than  that  controversy  be- 
tween Jews  and  believers  on  the  doctrine  of  "the  person" 
of  Christ  was  not  characteristic  of  the  period  100-120  a.  d., 
and  was  characteristic  of  that  of  his  earthly  ministry,  before 
he  was  "declared  to  be  the  Son  of  God  with  power  (better 
'miraculously  manifested  as  the  Son  of  God')  by  the  res- 
urrection from  the  dead." 

When  we  begin  to  recover  from  our  astonishment,  and  to 
ask  ourselves  what  possible  grounds  Profes.sor  Sanday  can 
suppose  himself  to  have  for  so  extraordinary  an  assertion,  we 
recall  the  fact  that  his  book  also  contains  a  chapter  on 
"The  Christology  of  the  Gospel,"  in  which  the  effort  is  con- 
spicuous to  screw  up  scattered  phrases  from  the  Synoptics 
to  a  doctrine  of  Messiahship  having  some  resemblance  to 
the  Johannine  Logos  doctrine.  We  are  told,  e,  g.,  that  the 
Synoptic  Jesus 

"took  upon  Himself  to  forgive  sins  (?)  with  the  assurance  that 
those  whom  He  forgave  God  also  would  forgive."  ^ 

"He  called  Himself  (?)  in  one  very  ancient  form  of  the  narra- 
tive, 'Lord  of  the  sabbath.'  He  did  not  hesitate  to  review  the 
whole  course  of  previous  revelation,  and  to  propound  in  His  own 
name  (?)  {cf.  Mt.  5:45-48)  a  new  law  superseding  the  old.  He 
evidently  regarded  His  work  on  earth  as  possessing  an  extraor- 

1  Sanday,  Criticism,  p.  134.     Italics  ours. 

^  Cf.  Mk.  2:  5;  Lk.  7:  48,  "Thy  sins  are  forgiven,'"  Lk.  23:  34,  "Father, 
forgive  them,"  and  see  below,  p.  378. 


TREATMENT  OF  SYNOPTICS  361 

dinary  value.  He  was  Himself  (?)  a  greater  than  Solomon,  a 
greater  than  Jonah."  ^ 

On  points  of  historical  exegesis  wc  expect  to  differ  with  Pro- 
fessor Sanday.^  On  points  of  grammar  and  philology  we 
feel  ourselves  decidedly  his  inferior;  yet  wc  cannot  refrain 
from  asking  how  the  sense  "He  was  Himself  a  greater 
{fiei^cop  masculine)  than  Solomon"  can  be  obtained  from 
the  Greek  neuter  irXelov  (/.  e.,  "something  more,"  "a  greater 
matter")?^  But,  as  might  be  expected,  supreme  rehance 
is  placed  on  Mt.  11:  27  =  Lk.  10:  22,  often  designated  "the" 
Johannine  passage,  because  (as  sometimes  interpreted)  it 
stands  alone  and  unique  in  Synoptic  representation. 

We  have  given  elsewhere  "*  complete  exegctical  discussion 
to  this  famous  saying  and  here  can  only  summarize  results. 
The  very  fact  of  its  standing  alone  should  warn  us  against 
adopting  the  sense  Professor  Sanday  would  give  to  the  pas- 
sage; the  context  should  deter  us  still  more.  Jesus  is  vindi- 
cating two  things,  his  own  right  as  leader  and  teacher,  and 
the  rights  of  his  "Uttle  flock,"  his  Gahlean  followers,  re- 
ferred to  as  "babes,"  or  "Httle  ones."  Against  him  are  the 
"scribes,"   who   claim   for   themselves  a  monopoly  of  the 


1  P.  222. 

2  Professor  Sanday  accounts  for  differences  in  point  of  view  between  him- 
self and  the  critics  on  the  ground  that  they  are  dominated  by  "the  recollec- 
tion that  they  bring  with  them  of  what  they  learnt  in  their  childhood.  They 
do  not  try  to  shake  it  off;  it  is  always  there  at  the  back  of  their  minds;  and  it 
colors,  and  I  must  needs  think  discolors  all  the  elaborate  and  learner!  study 
that  they  make  of  the  Gospels  in  maturer  years!" 

^  The  real  sense  (pace  Professor  Sanday)  is  as  above  implied  (p.  350)  a 
comparison  of  the  Baptist's  warning  with  the  message  of  Jonah,  and  of 
Jesus'  own  offer  of  the  divine  forgiveness  with  what  the  Queen  of  Sheba 
came  to  seek.  This  winning  message  of  the  forgiving  love  of  God  is  a  greater 
matter  than  "the  wisdom  of  Solomon."  Where  a  comparison  of  persons  is 
implied  we  have  tul^oiv,  as  in  Mt.  11:  11,  and  the  later  readings  of  the 
passage  Mt.  12:7. 

*  Bacon,  "Jesus  the  Son  of  (iod,"  Harvard  Theol.  Review,  July,  1909. 


362  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

"knowledge  of  God,"  ^  and  for  their  blind  followers,  the 
Pharisees,  a  monopoly  of  "the  right  to  be  called  the  sons 
of  God,"  to  the  exclusion  of  "this  people  that  knoweth 
not  the  law."  Parallel  passages  in  the  Pauline  Epistles 
(Rom.  2: 17-20;  I  Cor.  i :  17-25  ;2:io;3:i;i3:i2;  Gal.  4: 8- 
9;  II  Tim.  2 :  19)  suggest  that  we  have  in  Mt.  11 :  27  a  com- 
bination of  two  sayings,  one  on  the  qualifications  of  the 
"scribe  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven"  to  teach,  the  other  on 
the  right  of  his  disciples  to  regard  themselves  as  "sons  and 
daughters  of  the  Highest."  However  that  may  be,  the  con- 
text and  Pauline  parallels  allow  no  other  than  a  generic 
sense  for  the  term  "the  son"  ^  in  either  occurrence.  So  far 
as  Jesus  speaks  of  himself  and  his  own  relation  to  "the 
Father"  it  is  representatively.  As  against  the  arrogance  of 
the  scribes  his  utterance  may  be  paraphrased: 

"All  my  'paradosis'  comes  from  my  Father,  neither  is  there 
any  true  knowledge  of  him  or  qualification  to  reveal  him  save  the 
filial  spirit"  (r/.  Mt.  5:8). 

As  against  the  exclusiveness  of  the  Pharisees,  and  the  claim 
of  the  scribes  to  hold  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  Jesus  denies 
the  right  to  extend  or  Hmit  the  "adoption"  to  any  whom 
"the  Father"  himself  has  not  "recognized"  (eyvco).^  For 
himself  he  claims  the  authority  of  an  Amos  against  the  pro- 
fessional religionists  (Am.  t^iS);  for  his  "little  ones"  he  de- 
mands release  from  the  grievous  yoke  and  heavy  burdens  of 
the  scribes,  and  "in  their  Father's  love  a  filial  part."  The- 
ology may  think  itself  the  gainer,  but  the  Church  only  loses 

1  In  the  wider  field  of  Paul's  polemic  it  is  "the  Jew"  who  is  guilty  of  this 
arrogance  as  toward  the  Gentile;  cf.  Rom.  2:  17-29. 

^  Cf.  Jn.  8:  35  "The  son  {i.  e.,  'he  who  is  a  son')  abideth  in  the  house 
forever" — as  against  the  bondservant  who  is  "cast  out";  an  adaptation  of 
Paul's  application  of  the  story  of  Isaac  and  Ishmael  (Gal.  4:  21-5:  i). 

3  On  the  textual  questions  involved  see  Harnack  {Spruche  und  Reden 
Jesu,  1907,  Exkurs  I),  and  Chapman's  reply  in  Journ.  of  Theol.  Studies 
for  July,  1909. 


TREATMENT  OF  SYNOPTICS  363 

when  this  magna  charta  of  Galilean  discipleship  is  robbed 
of  its  pure  religious  simplicity,  and  transformed  into  an 
oracular  utterance  on  the  interior  relations  of  the  Trinity, 
explaining 

"the  mutual  relation  of  the  Father  and  the  Son  ...  ex- 
pressed as  a  perfect  insight  on  the  part  of  each,  not  only  into  the 
mind,  but  into  the  whole  being  and  character  of  the  other."  ^ 

It  is  far  from  improbable,  wc  admit,  that  the  fourth  evan- 
gelist put,  or  at  least  would  have  put,  the  same  mystical  in- 
terpretation on  this  saying  of  Jesus  as  his  "defender"  puts 
upon  it,-  just  as  late  transcribers  of  Mt.  12:  7  have  antici- 
pated Sanday's  treatment  of  the  phrase  "a  greater  matter 
than  Solomon,"  ^  and  as  our  second  evangeUst  has  antici- 
pated his  representation  of  Jesus  assuming  the  prerogative 
of  God  and  silencing  protest  with  prodigy.'*  The  second 
evangelist  carries  his  Pauline  Christology  so  far  as  to  place 
in  the  mouth  of  Jesus  an  appeal  to  Ps.  no:  i.  This  passage 
had  been  employed  in  Peter's  speech  at  Pentecost  and 
previously  by  Paul  (I  Cor.  15:  25)  as  proof  of  the  ascension. 
Mark  transforms  it  into  a  refutation  of  "the  scribes'"  con- 
ception of  JMessiah  as  a  human  descendant  of  David,^    This 

1  Criticism,  p.  223. 

2  Mr.  Worsley  {Fourth  Gospel,  etc.,  p.  9)  presents  Jn.  3:  35  and  6:  46  as 
cases  of  "verbal  coincidence"  with  Mt.  11:  27.  They  might  reasonably  be 
called  "reflections"  of  Q — after  a  preliminary  "refraction"  in  Mt.  28:  18. 

3  The  older  and  better  MSS.  have  lul^ov  giving  the  sense  "a  greater 
matter"  (than  the  sanctity  of  the  temple).    Later  MSS.  alter  to  fiel^uv. 

*  We  agree  with  Mr.  Worsley  {ibid.,  p.  92)  as  against  Professor  Sanday 
that  in  Mk.  2:  1-12  there  is  no  "  effort  at  veiling  in  the  establishing  of  the 
claim  to  forgive  sins  by  a  following  miracle,"  and  that  the  second  evangelist  is 
already  well  advanced  on  the  road  toward  a  doctrine  of  incarnation.  This 
does  not  justify  us  in  preferring  his  view  to  that  which  is  alone  consistent 
with  Jesus'  own  language  {cf.  Q)  and  action.  On  the  editorial  character  of 
Mk.  2:  56-ro,  see  Beginnings  of  Gospel  Story;  Loisy,  Evang.  Synopt.,  ad  loc, 
etc.,  and  below,  p.  379. 

5  Mk.  12:35-37.  On  the  editorial  character  of  this  supplement  to  the 
debates  with  Pharisee,  Sadducce,  and  Scribe,  see  Beginnings,  etc.,  ad  loc. 


364  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

would  seem  indeed  a  Markan  anticipation  of  the  Johannine 
debates  of  Jesus  with  "the  Jews";  but  a  lesser  anachronism 
cannot  condone  a  greater.  Either  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
historical  criticism,  and  cause  and  effect  are  topsyturvy,  or 
else  the  Christology  of  the  Petrine  speeches  of  Acts,  wherein 
Jesus  is  "made  both  Lord  and  Christ"  by  his  resurrection 
and  exaltation  to  "the  right  hand  of  God"  comes  first;  the 
Pauline,  which  ignores  his  earthly  ministry  to  view  him 
solely  as  "the  Lord  the  Spirit,"  came  later;  while  latest  of 
all  is  the  Johannine,  which  reflects  upon  his  entire  earthly 
career  the  heavenly  glory  "which  he  had  with  the  Father 
before  the  foundation  of  the  world,"  viewing  it  simply  as  a 
period  during  which 

"the  Logos  became  flesh  and  tabernacled  among  us,  and  we  be- 
held his  glory,  glory  as  of  the  only  begotten  from  the  Father."  ^ 

Professor  Sanday  sets  his  own  doctrine  that  the  Christo- 
logical  debates  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  not  the  rights  of  the 
"lost  sons"  as  against  the  grievous  burdens  of  the  scribes — 
not  a  kingdom  of  God  for  the  "little  flock"  as  against  the 
exclusive  spiritual  privilege  of  the  Pharisees — was  typical 
of  "Jewish  controversy  as  it  existed  in  the  time  of  our  Lord," 
over  against  "the  critical  theory."  He  objects  to  the  latter, 
as  propounded  by  Professor  Wernle,  that  it  attributes  too 
much  "originahty"  to  Paul,  and  too  little  resisting  power  on 
the  part  of  the  Jewish  Christian  element  in  the  Church.^ 
If  the  scholarly  world  must  choose  between  the  two  we  may 
rest  secure  of  the  verdict.  The  "common  ground"  of  the 
Jewish  and  Gentile  Church  is  not  left  obscure  by  Paul.  It  is 
stated  repeatedly  and  explicitly — most  exphcitly  perhaps  in 
I  Cor.  15:1-11.  It  was  the  doctrine  that  by  the  resurrection 
and  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  Jesus  had  been  made  "both 
Lord  and  Christ,"  or  in  Paul's  language  had  been  "mirac- 

1  Jn.  1:  14.  2  Criticism,  pp.  226-233. 


TREATMENT  OE  SVXOrTlCS  365 

ulously  manifested  as  the  Son  of  God  by  the  resurrection." 
What  was  im])Hecl  in  this  as  to  the  nature  of  his  ])erson  and 
work  was  a  matter  for  individual  judgment.  It  was  elab- 
orated among  the  various  parties  in  the  Church  in  ac- 
cordance with  their  (largely  preconceived)  theories  of  re- 
dem])tion,  whether  legalistic,  apocalyptic,  metaphysical,  or 
mystical.  That  a  Pauline  incarnation  doctrine,  witli  all  its 
modicum  of  "  originality,"  should  have  ultimately  prevailed 
in  the  Greek-speaking  Church  over  the  Petrine  Christology 
of  apotheosis  is  surely  no  matter  for  wonderment. 

Understanding,  then,  that  it  is  just  this  inadequacy  of  the 
Synoptic  Gospels,  and  on  the  point  above  all  others  of  their 
Christology,  that  made  a  Fourth  Gospel  indispensable  to  the 
Pauline  churches,  we  may  turn  to  the  treatment  accorded 
in  it  to  its  predecessors,  with  the  expectation  that  if  our  con- 
ception of  its  authorship  and  purpose  be  correct  it  will  show 
in  its  whole  structure  this  relation.  We  shall  expect  it  to 
remedy  (from  doctrinal,  not  historico-critical  motives)  those 
"defects"  of  Mark  which  had  made  this  Gospel  a  favorite 
with 

"those  who  separate  Jesus  from  Christ,  allegnig  that  Christ  re- 
mained impassible,  but  that  it  was  Jesus  who  suffered,"  ^ 

if  only  because  two  previous  efforts  had  been  made  to  coun- 
teract the  impression  (just  or  unjust)  that  Jesus  according 
to  this  Gospel  became  the  Son  of  God  by  adoption  of  the 
Spirit  at  his  baptism.  We  shall  expect  it  to  remedy  (in  the 
interest  of  doctrine,  not  history)  the  "order"  of  Mark,  ad- 
mittedly unauthoritative,  and  the  Markan  representation  of 
both  words  and  deeds  of  the  Christ,  removing  the  appearance 
of  pettiness  attaching  to  its  figure  of  a  Galilean  healer  and 
cxorciser,  and  showing  that  "this  thing  was  not  done  in  a 
corner."    For  we  have  both  the  ridicule  of  a  Celsus,  and  the 

1  IrencTus,  Ilacr.  Ill,  xi,  7. 


366  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

apologetic  example  of  a  Luke,  to  show  how  the  controversy 
ran  between  Church  and  Synagogue  as  to  the  character  of 
the  Ministry.  We  shall  expect  it  to  remedy  the  Markan 
type  of  Resurrection  narrative;  for  that  had  already  been 
suppressed.  We  shall  expect  withal  a  reflection  of  the 
changed  ideas  of  later  times,  an  increased  sacramcntarian 
interest,  a  more  exalted  view  of  the  apostles  and  their  func- 
tion, a  revised  and  improved  eschatology,  changes  in  scores 
of  features  which  in  110-115  a.  d.  had  made  the  Roman 
evangehst's  attempt  to  combine  Petrine  story  with  Pauline 
doctrine  look  antiquated  and  inadequate;  so  that  a  Papias 
must  apologize  for  it  and  the  Church  at  large  first  mutilate 
and  then  neglect  it.  We  have  not  space  to  treat  after  the 
manner  of  the  Biblical  theologies  of  the  fourth  evangelist's 
Logos  doctrine,  his  anthropology,  sotcriology,  and  escha- 
tology in  comparison  with  the  Synoptic.  In  view  of  Mr. 
Scott's  work  we  are  glad  to  think  we  need  not.  But  we  are 
required  to  show  in  what  general  relation  the  Gospel  stands 
to  its  predecessors.  How,  then,  has  the  fourth  evangelist 
treated  the  Synoptic  material? 
Mr.  Worsley  finds 

"  as  the  result  of  careful  search,  that  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  there 
is  no  conscious  use  made  of  any  of  that  part  of  the  first  Gospel 
which  is  peculiar  to  itself."  ^ 

After  the  space  given  to  five  instances  in  which  it  is  difficuh 
to  imagine  any  critic  discovering  a  literary  relation  '  we  aif. 


1  Op.  cit.,  p.  7. 

2  Mr.  Worsley's  "careful  search"  brings  him  to  (i)  a  variant  reading  in 
Mt.  14:  24,  not  necessarily  related  to  Jn.  6:  19;  (2)  another,  generally  rejected, 
in  Mt.  27:  49;  (3)  Mt.  11:  27,  which  is  not  "peculiar  to  Matthew";  (4)  Mt. 
13:  55  f.,  of  which  the  same  is  true;  (5)  Mt.  15:  13,  which  is  not  parallel  to 
Jn.  15:  2.  The  only  one  of  the  six  passages  adduced  which  appears  to  have 
a  real  bearing  on  the  question  is  Jn.  2:  i9  =  Mk.  15:  58  =  Mt.  26:  61.  Here 
(for  reasons  entirely  unnoticed  in  Mr.  Worsley's  superficial  treatment)  w.e 


TREATMENT  OF  SYNOPTICS  367 

somewhat  surprised  to  find  no  attention  paid  to  Jn.  12:8, 
which  is  verbally  identical  with  Mt.  26:  11  (Mk,  14:  7  ex- 
pands). The  verse,  however,  is  wanting  in  D  and  the 
Sinaitic  Syriac,  and  is  therefore  probably  a  "Western  non- 
interpolation."  It  would  also  have  been  well  to  mention 
that  the  silence  of  Mark  and  the  misstatement  of  Lk.  3:2^ 
as  to  the  name  of  the  high  priest  are  emended  in  Jn.  18:  13 
in  accordance  with  the  correct  statement  of  Mt.  26:  57;  and 
further  that  the  naming  of  Peter  on  occasion  of  his  recog- 
nition of  Jesus  as  the  Christ  (Jn.  i:  42  =  Mt.  16:  18)  is  also 
pecuhar  to  our  first  Synoptist.^  With  a  few  slight  corrections 
of  the  evidence,  such  as  the  above,  Mr.  Worsley's  observa- 
tion is  correct,  and  corresponds  with  what  we  should  an- 
ticipate regarding  the  Evangelist's  attitude  toward  the  most 
anti-Pauline  of  the  Gospels.  The  only  Synoptic  writer  from 
whom  he  quotes  verbatim  is  Mark,  and  that  quite  rarely.'"* 
On  the  other  hand,  his  divergences  from  Mark  are  fre- 
quently but  further  developments  of  changes  already  begun 
by  Luke,  and  in  several  instances  combination  of  Mark 
with  Luke  is  effected."*     Several  of  the  Lukan  additions  to 


judge  the  relation  to  Matthew  to  be  the  nearer.  We  have  seen  already, 
however  (p.  342),  that  Jn.  2:  13-22  is  an  exceptional  passage,  whose  treat- 
ment must  be  deferred.    See  Chapter  XVIII. 

1  We  leave  the  question  open  whether  Jn.  n:  49  ("high-priest  that  year") 
shows  "injudicious  dependence"  on  Lk.  3:  2. 

2  Note,  however,  that  "John"  deprives  the  naming  of  all  significance, 
save  that  of  bare  miraculous  prediction,  by  making  others  precede  Peter  in 
the  recognition. 

3  In  Jn.  i:26-27  =  Mk.  1:7-8;  Jn.  12:  i3  =  Mk.  11:9;  Jn.  13:21  = 
Mk.  14:  18.  These  too  are  probably  memoriter,  as  transcription  is  not  the 
method  of  the  fourth  evangelist. 

*  Note,  e.  g.,  the  carrying  back  of  the  Sonship  of  Jesus,  the  Samaritan 
ministry',  the  "Jerusalem"  type  of  Resurrection  narratives,  etc.  On  the 
combination  of  Mk.  14:3-9  with  Lk.  7:36-50  in  Jn.  12:  1-8,  see  above, 
p.  334.  Cf.  further  Jn.  1:24-28  with  Mk.  i:7-|-Lk.  3:  15-16,  and  Jn. 
3:  I  fT.  with  Mk.  10:  13-22-l-Lk.  18:  18  (the  rich  man  a  "ruler"). 


368  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Mark  are  adopted  with  characteristic  freedom  of  recasting,* 
and  Lukan  characters  arc  added  to  Mark's  dramatis  persons?, 
either  as  separate  individuals,  or  as  supplementary  traits  in 
a  composite  whose  basis  is  from  Mark.-  Anyone  who  will 
take  the  pains  to  verify  the  evidence,  as  presented  in  the 
footnotes  we  here  subjoin,  can  see  for  himself  the  general 
method  of  the  fourth  evangelist  in  dealing  with  Synoptic 
material,  (i)  Matthew  is  practically  ignored;  (2)  Mark  is 
made  the  basis;  (3)  supplements  and  changes  are  made  with 
large  use  of  Luke  both  as  to  motive  and  material.  The 
formative  principle  determining  the  entire  construction  is, 
as  we  have  already  made  clear  and  now  reiterate,  the  "spir- 
itual" gospel  of  Paul.  It  is  this  which  forbids  any  such  mere 
transcription  as  that  which  characterizes  our  first  and  third 
evangelists  in  their  combination  of  Mark  and  Q. 

In  its  general  structure  the  outline  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 
is  simple  and  clear,  and  reproduces  that  of  Mark  as  modified 
by  Luke.  We  have  a  primary  division  at  the  end  of  chap- 
ter 12,  separating  Jesus'  pubHc  ministry  from  the  farewell  dis- 
courses to  "his  own"  (chapters  13-17);  which  are  followed  by 

1  E.  g.,  Jn.  20:  2-10,  recasting  Lk.  24  :  8-12;  Jn.  20  :  19-25  recasting 
Lk.  24:  36-43. 

2  E.  g.,  Mary  and  Martha  (from  Lk.  10:  38-42)  in  Jn.  11;  Lazarus  (from 
Lk.  16  :  19-31)  ibid.  The  composite  Nicodemus  (=Naq  Dimon  of  Tal- 
mudic  tradition,  celebrated  for  his  wealth  and  for  having  provided  at  his  own 
expense  baths  for  purifying  pilgrims  to  the  temple)  is  based  on  Mk.  10:  17, 
22  {cf.  verses  14-16),  12:  28-34,  and  15:  42-46  with  additional  traits  de- 
rived from  Lk.  18:  18  and  suggested  by  Acts  5:  34-40.  The  Samaritan 
Woman  plays  the  part  of  Mark's  Syro-Phoenician  (extension  of  the  gospel 
to  outsiders)  with  the  Lukan  intermediate  stage  of  a  Samaritan  mission 
(Lk.  9:51-56;  10:29-37;  17:11-19;  Acts  1:8;  8:5-25),  and  traits  from 
Lk.  7:  36  ff.  Philip,  who  plays  a  separate  part  only  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  is 
here  prominent,  and  that  especially  in  connection  with  the  wider  extension 
of  the  gospel  (Jn.  1:  43-48;  6:  5-7;  12:  21-22;  14:  8-9).  In  Acts  only  Philip 
appears  among  the  Twelve,  apart  from  Peter,  as  engaged  in  the  work  of 
evangelization  (.^cts  8:  26-400  [40^  should  be  referred  to  Philip  the  Evan- 
gelist, cf.  21:  8]). 


TREAT.MENT  OF  SYNOPTICS  369 

the  scenes  of  the  Passion  and  Resurrection  (chapters  18-20). 
All  that  which  in  Mk.  3:7-6:13  is  concerned  with  the 
Training  and  Mission  of  the  Twelve  and  in  Mk.  4:  1-34 
and  13:  1-37  predicts  the  Establishment  of  the  Kingdom,  is 
transferred,  after  the  example  of  Lk.  22:35-38  and  Q/  to 
a  imal  sending  forth  of  the  apostles  to  the  conquest  of  the 
workl,  forewarned  of  persecution  and  armed  witli  the  Spirit 
(Jn.  14-16).  Thus  instead  of  two  eschatological  discourses, 
as  in  Mark,-  and  Izco  Missions  of  the  Twelve  as  in  Luke, 
we  have  a  single  great  Farewell  Discourse  combining  their 
three  principal  elements  (i)  the  disciples'  work  (Jn.  15:  i- 
16),  (2)  their  conflict  with  the  world  (15:  17-16:4),  (3)  the 
promise  of  the  Spirit  (16:5-33;  ^3' 3^~'^4- 3'^)-  The  par- 
ables, which  in  Mk.  4:  1-34  arc  treated  as  an  esoteric  de- 
liverance to  Jesus'  spiritual  kin  (c/.  3  :  31-35)  of  "the  mystery 
of  the  kingdom  of  God"  intentionally  hid  from  "those  that 
are  without,"  arc  scattered,  as  by  Luke,  throughout  the  Gos- 
])el.  They  rca])pear  in  tlie  form  of  allegories  (c.  g.,  10:  1-16; 
15:  1-6),^  which  deal  not  with  the  nature  of  the  kingdom, 
but  with  the  nature  of  Christ.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Wonders  of  Faith,  which  in  ]\Ik.  4:35-5:43  present  to  the 
Twelve  examples  encouraging  them  to  their  ministry  as 
workers  of  miracle  by  the  power  of  faith,  in  an  ascending 
series  which  culminates  in  the  Raising  of  Jairus'  Daughter, 

1  Mt.  10:  16-42=  Lk.  10:  iff.;  12:3-9,  51-53  is  appended  b)'  our  first 
evangelist' to  Mk.  6:  7-13  as  if  part  of  a  Galilean  mission;  but  its  intrinsic 
character  (c.  g.,  verses  16,  18,  27-31)  and  the  duplication  of  much  of  Chap- 
ter 24.  (=Mk.  13)  suggest  that  Q  agreed  with  Jn.  14-16.  /.  e.,  the  sending 
anfl  warning  of  the  Twelve,  with  the  promise  of  the  Paraclete,  were  not  pro- 
visional and  local  as  in  Mk.  6:  7-13,  but  final  and  general  as  in  Mt.  10,  where 
the  setting  begins  indeed  as  in  Mark,  but  there  is  no  return  of  the  disciples. 

2  On  the  Discourse  in  Parables  (Mk.  4:  1-34)  as  eschatological  in  the 
evangelist's  conception  see  Bacon,  "The  Apocalyptic  Chapter  in  the  Synoptic 
Gospels,"  Journ.  of  Bibl.  Lit.  XXVIII,  (1909)  i,  pp.  5-7. 

3  The  seven  "I  am's"  of  Jesus  in  the  Fourth  Gospel.  In  this  case  the 
number  may  be  accidental. 

Fourth  Gospel — 24 


370  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

are  also  distributed.  They  are  still  arranged  in  a  similar 
ascending  scries,  with  similar  culmination  (Jn.  1 1).  We  note, 
however,  the  important  difference,  whose  apologetic  value 
is  highly  significant,  that  the  mighty  works  are  no  longer 
hmited,  as  in  Mark  (with  unimportant  exceptions),  to  the 
Galilean  "corner,"  but  are  equally  distributed  between  Gali- 
lee and  Jerusalem.^  We  note  further  that  the  same  liberty 
of  transposing  the  Markan  parables  and  mighty  works  had 
been  previously  taken  by  our  first  and  third  evangelists. 
Matthew's  scheme,  however,  gives  a  group  of  ten  mighty 
works,  all  in  Galilee  (Mt.  8-9),  and  a  group  of  seven  parables 
(Mt.  13). 

Turning  from  the  second  half  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  whose 
general  structure  (aside  from  the  substitution  just  noted  of 
the  Farewell  Discourse  for  the  Eschatological  Discourse  of 
the  Synoptics),  merely  reproduces  Mark's  outHne  of  the 
Passion  story  as  supplemented  in  Luke,^  wc  may  examine 
a  little  more  closjly  Part  I  (Jn.  1-12).  This  half  of  the 
Gospel  depicts  the  public  ministry,  its  close  (12:36^-50) 
applying  the  Pauline  doctrine  of  the  "hardening  of  Israel" 
(Rom.  9:  14-33)  already  utilized  in  Mk.  4:  11-12,  as  it  had 
been  previously  applied  to  form  the  close  of  the  Lukan  nar- 
rative (Acts  28:  25-28).  Jn.  1 2 :  38-40  even  reproduces  the 
Pauline  "scripture  fulfilments."  ^ 


1  Jerusalem  has  the  Paralytic  (5:  i  ff.),  the  Man  born  Blind  (g:  i  ff.)  and 
Lazarus  (11:  i  ff.),  as  against  the  two  in  Cana  (2:  i  ff.;  4:  54  ff.)  and  two 
at  the  sea  of  Tiberias  (6:  1-25).  But  Jerusalem  has  not  only  the  greatest  of 
the  signs  (11:  i  ff.)  but  the  tokens  of  the  Resurrection. 

2  We  may  note  that  the  High-priestly  prayer  (Jn.  17)  is  a  characteristic 
substitution  for  the  Agony  in  Gethsemane,  to  which  only  Lk.  22:  32  furnishes 
a  link  of  transition. 

3  Jn.  12:38  quotes  Is  53:  i.  So  had  Paul  (Rom.  10:  16).  Jn.  12:40 
quotes  Is.  6:  9,  10.  So  had  Paul  (Rom.  11:  8).  The  whole  structure  of  this 
concluding  chapter  of  Part  I,  Jesus  received  by  the  "little  ones"  but  con- 
spired against  by  the  rulers  (12:  1-19),  sought  by  the  Gentiles,  but  remain- 


TREATMENT  OF  SYNOPTICS  371 

The  public  ministry  has  the  same  division  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel  into  a  Galilean  and  a  Penean  period  which  Luke 
had  adopted  from  the  obscurer  Markan  scheme  and  made 
so  fundamental  to  his  own.  As  in  Mk.  8 :  28-9 :  50  the 
Confession  of  Peter,  with  its  connected  incidents  and  teach- 
ings, concludes  the  Gahlean  ministry,  while  the  chapter 
following  (Mk.  10)  is  occupied  with  the  journey  through 
Pera^a,  so  in  Jn.  6:66-71  the  Confession  of  Peter  marks 
the  same  transition.  "John"  passes  from  a  Galilean  min- 
istry concluded  with  the  Sign  of  the  Loaves  (Jn.  4-6)  to  a 
Pera^an  (Jn.  10:40;  11:54);  though  this,  like  the  Galilean, 
is  interrupted  by  visits  to  Jerusalem  (7:  i-io;  10:  22;  11:  7; 
12:1  ff.).^  Thus  the  first  half  of  the  Gospel  falls  into  two 
approximately  equal  parts  (chapters  1-6,  and  chapters  7-12), 
which  correspond  with  similar  geographical  subdivisions  bor- 
rowed by  Luke  from  ]\Iark,  and  form  a  counterpart  to  those 
of  Part  II  (Jn.  13-17;  18-20). 

The  same  rule  already  applied — the  Markan  outline  with 
modifications  often  foreshadowed  in  Luke — will  carry  us 
still  further  toward  an  understanding  of  the  general  structure 
of  the  "spiritual"  Gospel.  We  have  seen  that  those  ele- 
ments of  Mark's  story  of  the  Galilean  ministry  which  relate 
to  the  choosing,  training  and  sending  of  the  Twelve  (Mk.  3 :  7- 
6:  13)  are  transferred  (by  no  means  without  precedent)  to 
Part  II  (Jn,  14-16).  In  1 10-120  A.  d.  an  Apostle's  calling 
could  no  longer  be  treated  as  a  model  for  mere  traveling 
evangelists  and  healers.  This  leaves  of  the  first  half  of 
Mark's  Gospel  only  two  of  its  three  main  divisions.'    The 

ing  to  "abolish  in  his  flesh  the  enmity"  (12:  20-36),  should  be  compared 
with  Luke  and  Paul. 

1  On  the  significance  of  the  visits  to  Jerusalem  at  the  feasts  see  below, 
Chapter  XV,  Johannine  Topography  and  Chronology,  and  Chapter  XVI, 
Johannine  Quartodeciman'sm. 

2  As  to  these  divisions  and  subdivisions  of  Mark  no  difference  of  opinion 
exists  among  modern  authorities.     The  reader  is  referred  to  Beginnings  of 


372  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

first  (Mk.  1 :  1-3 :  6)  might  be  entitled  the  Beginning  of  the 
Ministry;  it  includes  two  parts:  (a)  the  Baptism  of  John, 
Call  of  the  First  Disciples,  and  Beginning  of  Miracles 
(Mk.  i);  (b)  the  Growth  of  Opposition  (Mk.  2:1-3:6). 
Each  of  these  has  its  counterpart  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  the 
former  (a)  in  Jn.  i :  1-2:  12;  3:  22-36;  the  latter  (b)  in  Jn.  5.^ 
The  remaining  division  of  Mark  included  (a)  the  Sign  of  the 
Loaves  and  Walking  on  the  Sea  (Mk.  6:  14-52),  and  (b)  the 
ColHsion  with  the  Scribes  in  Capernaum  and  Ministry  in 
Phoenicia  and  Decapolis  (Mk.  6:  53-8:  27).  Both  of  these 
again  have  their  counterparts  in  Jn.  6  and  Jn.  4:  1-42,  re- 
spectively. Notoriously  the  latter  part  {b)  of  this  section  of 
Mark  has  been  treated  in  the  most  radical  manner  by  Luke, 
and  less  drastically  by  Matthew.  In  both  these  Synoptic 
predecessors  of  our  evangelist  the  Markan  representation  of 
a  ministry  of  Jesus  among  Gentiles  had  been  suppressed.^ 
Both  had  added  the  incident  of  the  Centurion's  Servant 
which  conveys  nearly  the  same  lesson  as  the  Markan  story 
of  the  Syro-Phoenician  Woman,  without  fixing  on  Jesus  the 
role  of  a  Jonah  needing  to  be  freed  from  the  limitations  of  a 
narrow  nationahsm,  and  also  without  suggesting  an  actual 
ministry  in  partibus  infidehum.  In  Jn.  4  the  Lukan  sub- 
stitute of  a  ministry  among  Samaritans  is  followed  in  pref- 

Gospel  Story,  pp.  xi-xvii,  but  interpreters  agree  as  to  the  divisions  after 
i:  45;  3:  6;  and  6:  13,  which  are  here  in  question. 

1  On  the  prolepsis  of  Jn.  2:  13-3:  21  (Temple  Cleansing  and  Nicodemus) 
and  Jn.  4  (Samaritan  Mission  and  Centurion's  Servant)  see  below,  and 
Chapter  XIX. 

2  Mt.  15:  21-28  retains  the  episode  of  the  "Canaanitish  "  Woman  from 
Mk.  7:  24  ff.,  alongside  its  less  radical  pendant  of  the  Heathen  Centurion 
(Mt.  8:  5-13  =  Lk.  7:  i-io),  but  makes  the  woman  come  "out  of  those 
borders,"  so  that  Jesus  does  not  leave  the  sacred  soil.  Luke  retains  only  the 
Centurion,  but  more  than  compensates  for  the  cancelation  by  his  entire 
second  treatise,  whose  motive  from  beginning  to  end  is  equivalent  to  that 
of  the  canceled  section  of  Mark.  In  addition  he  introduces  a  work  of  Jesus 
in  Samaria. 


TREATMENT  OF  SYNOPTICS  373 

crcncc  to  the  MatthcTan  method,  which  brings  the  "Canaan- 
itish"  woman  "out  of  those  borders,"  so  that  her  case  may 
correspond  with  the  Centurion's,  or  more  closely  still  with 
that  of  "Rahab  the  harlot."  However,  the  fourth  evangelist 
declines  to  follow  Luke  in  canceling  the  Markan  episode, 
preferring  to  retain  it  in  the  modified  form  of  the  Dialogue 
with  the  Woman  of  Samaria  side  by  side  with  its  Q  pendant 
of  the  Centurion's  Servant. 

With  the  exception  of  the  interjected  material  of  Jn.  2:  13- 
3:  21  and  4:  1-42,  which  has  a  history  of  its  own,'  the  Gali- 
lean Ministry  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  thus  agrees  throughout 
with  the  corresponding  section  of  Mark  (Mk,  1-9).  The 
greater  omissions  have  already  been  explained.-  Such 
minor  substitutions  and  changes  as  remain  are  all  explicable 
by  the  recognized  and  characteristic  motives  of  our  evangeUst. 
It  will  be  needful,  however,  to  observe  the  nature  of  these 
seriatim,  at  least  for  the  opening  chapters,  that  we  may  fully 
acquaint  ourselves  with  his  method. 

The  Prologue  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  (Jn.  i :  1-18)  corre- 
sponds to  the  ])rologue  of  j\Iark  (Mk.  i :  1-13)  wdth  character- 
istic correction  of  "the  beginning  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ  the  Son  of  God."  The  attempts  of  Matthew  and 
Luke  to  obviate  its  inadequate  Christology  had  fallen  far 
short  of  the  PauHne  incarnation  doctrine,  much  as  they  im- 
proved upon  Mark  in  respect  to  making  the  "sonship"  of 
Jesus  cover  his  entire  earthly  life.  If  the  earthly  life  was 
to  be  treated  throughout  as  a  "tabernacUng"  of  the  Logos 
among  us  ( Jn.  i :  14)  and  not  merely  as  irradiated  at  inter- 
vals by  visions  and  voices  as  at  the  Baptism  and  Transfig- 
uration, the  "sonship"  must  first  of  all  be  carried  back  to 
"the  glory  which  he  had  with  the  Father  before  the  founda- 
tion of  the  world."  In  particular  the  Temptation  must  be 
not  merely  reduced,   as  in   ]\Ik.    1:12-13,   but   completely 

1  See  Chapters  X\'III  and  XIX.  2  Above,  p.  369. 


374  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

canceled;  moreover,  the  Baptism  by  John  must  cease  to  be 
a  revelation  to  Jesus — for  how  can  the  Son  who  had  "de- 
scended out  of  heaven"  ^  require  a  Vocation  by  Voice  from 
heaven  to  acquaint  him  with  his  own  nature  and  mission? 
It  must  become  a  mere  testimony  to  Israel  mediated  by  the 
Baptist.^  Of  the  further  occasion  for  reducing  the  relative 
importance  of  the  Baptist  himself,  and  for  making  his  rite  a 
loan  from  Christianity  and  not  conversely,  we  have  already 
spoken.^  The  transformations  of  Mk.  i :  1-13  thus  called 
for  are  indeed  profound,  and  require  the  detail  of  a  commen- 
tary for  full  exposition;  but  it  cannot  justly  be  said  that  we 
have  not  a  completely  adequate  key  in  the  basic  postulates 
of  Johannine  (and  Pauline)  Christology,  to  all  the  trans- 
formations effected. 

The  transformation  of  Mark's  Call  of  the  Four  and  Be- 
ginning of  Miracles  (Mk.  i:  14-45)  i^  J^-  ^'-  i9~2:  12  was 
equally  unavoidable,  and  is  equally  intelhgible  on  Johannine 
principles.  It  is  inherently  probable  that  the  ready  response 
of  the  four  fishermen  to  Jesus'  proposal  to  engage  in  a  fishery 
of  men  (with  Mk.  1:17;  cf.  Jer.  16:16)  w^as  historically 
mediated  by  previous  joint  association  with  the  Baptist, 
whose  frustrated  work  Jesus  now  proposes  to  take  up.  Tra- 
dition of  such  earlier  association  of  Jesus  with  his  earliest 
followers  may  very  well  have  been  accessible  to  our  evangehst. 
The  motive  of  his  correction  of  Mark  must  be  judged, 
however,  not  by  conjectures  of  superior  information  acces- 
sible to  him,  but  by  our  real  knowledge  of  his  situation,  and 
his  systematic  treatment  of  the  earlier  portrait  of  the  Baptist. 
In  the  light  of  these  we  can  see  that  he  had,  doctrinally 

1  Jn.  3:  13;  cf.  II  Cor.  8:  9. 

2  B.  Weiss  in  his  Leben  Jesu  thinks  it  consonant  with  historical  probability 
that  the  experience  which  results  in  driving  Jesus  first  to  the  wilderness, 
afterwards  to  his  ministry  and  death,  should  have  its  psychological  origin  in 
the  soul  of  the  Baptist  I 

3  Above,  p.  349  ff. 


TREATMENT  OF  SYNOPTICS  375 

speaking,  no  alternative  but  to  make  Jesus'  ministry  begin 
independently  of  the  Baptist's,  explaining  its  apparent 
growth  out  of  the  latter  by  an  intentional  restraint  on  Jesus' 
part  (4:  1-3).  The  best  method  to  this  end  was  to  fall  back 
upon  some  antecedent  relation  of  Jesus  to  the  first  group 
of  disciples,  bejorc  the  Caj^ernaum  j^eriod,  and  before  John 
was  "cast  into  prison"  (2:  12;  3:  24).  We  note  that  in  this 
substitute  for  the  Markan  Call  of  the  Four  it  is  not  at  all  a 
taking  up  of  the  Baptist's  call  to  repentance  which  is  in  view, 
nor  is  anything  said  of  the  plebeian  status  and  occupation 
of  the  disciples.^  What  is  presented  to  them  is  simply  the 
doctrine  of  Jesus'  Messiahship,  understood  in  the  Pauline 
sense  as  a  taking  away  0}  the  sin  0}  the  world  by  an  atoning 
sacrifice,  this  to  be  followed  by  an  opening  of  heaven  and  an 
ascending  and  descending  of  the  angels  upon  the  Son  of  man 
(Jn.  1 :  29,  36,  45,  49,  51).  Thus  not  only  Peter,  but  Andrew 
and  PhiUp  also  already  know  and  fully  accept  the  revelation 
found  so  distasteful  in  ]Mk.  8:  27-9:  13.  Jesus  has  already 
declared  himself  as  the  ^Messiah,  the  Son  of  God,  the  King 
of  Israel,  in  the  non- Jewish,  transcendental  sense,  and  has 
been  accepted  as  such  by  all  the  disciples.  The  Confession 
and  Naming  of  Peter  is  anticipated,'  and  even  the  much 
disputed  prophecy  about  the  Revelation  of  the  Son  of  Man 
(Mk.  9:i=Jn.  1:51).  This  latter,  however,  is  delivered 
to  "Nathaniel,"  a  new  figure  characterized  hke  Paul's  "Jew 
which  is  one  inwardly"  (1:47;  cf.  Rom.  2:28f.)  and  de- 
clared by  R  (21 :  2)  to  be  of  the  new  locality  "Cana  of  Gal- 
ilee." Thus  the  w'hole  ground,  not  only  of  Mk.  i :  16-20  but 
of  Mk.  8:27-9:13  also,  is  already  covered^  in  a  way  to 
meet  all  objections  of  "the  Jews,"  whether  to  the  obscurity 

1  In  the  FouFih   Gospel  the  Hellenized   "  city  "  of   Bethsaida,   not  the 
Galilean  town  of  Capernaum  is  their  native  place  (Jn.  i:  44). 

2  See  above,  p.  352. 

3  With  Mk.  9:  2-8  cf.  Jn.  i:  14. 


376  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

of  the  beginnings  of  Jesus'  work,  or  its  dependence  on  that 
of  the  Baptist. 

But  the  Markan  Beginning  of  Miracles  also  (Mk.  1:21- 
45)  was  peculiarly  unsatisfactoty.  Historically  nothing  can 
be  more  probable  than  that  Jesus'  fame  as  a  healer,  and 
particularly  as  an  exorciser  (Acts  10:38),  had  its  beginning 
in  such  an  outcry  and  word  of  rebuke  followed  by  restora- 
tion of  the  "possessed"  as  Mark  relates  (Mk.  1:21-39;  ^1- 
Acts  16:  16-18).  The  fact  that  this  "exorcism"  with  its 
attendant  train  of  "healings"  was  in  reality  the  starting 
point  of  Jesus'  miracles  is  also  supported  not  only  by  the 
verisimilitude  of  this  peculiarly  simple  narrative  of  the 
Sabbath  in  Capernaum  at  Peter's  house,  and  the  uniform 
representation  of  all  S}Tioptic  material  concerning  Jesus' 
casting  out  of  "demons,"  but  more  especially  by  the  pro- 
found revulsion  of  feeling  it  occasions  in  Jesus'  own  mind 
(Mk.  1 :  35-38),  leading  to  a  complete  change  of  program. 

Doctrinally,  however,  such  a  "beginning  of  miracles"  was 
open  to  the  gravest  objections  from  the  fourth  evangelist's 
point  of  view.  Not  only  were  such  feats  as  characterized 
the  "strolling  Jews,  exorcisers"  of  Ephesus  far  from  such 
as  he  would  attribute  to  the  incarnate  Logos  "manifesting 
his  glory";  not  only  had  Jesus'  exorcisms  been  assailed  by 
"the  Jews"  as  evidence  of  quite  other  spiritual  control  than 
Mark  maintains;  the  complete  silence  of  Paul  as  to  this 
particular  "gift  of  the  Spirit"  and  the  still  more  marked 
silence  of  "John"  ^  suggest  that  the  more  cultured  element 
in  the  Church  viewed  the  popular  delusion  about  "evil 
spirits"  as  a  cause  of  disease  with  a  skepticism  approximating 
that  of   the   recognized   Greek  medical  authorities  of  the 

1  There  is  one  allusion  to  "possession"  in  the  Fourth  Gospel — the  charge 
of  "the  Jews"  against  Jesus  (8:  48)— and  one  "exorcism."  It  is  the  Pauline 
exorcism  of  the  deposing  of  the  "Prince  of  the  power  of  the  air"  from  his 
control  of  "this  world"  (Jn.  12:  31). 


TREATMENT  OF  SYNOPTICS  377 

time.  In  the  Fourth  Gospel,  accordingly,  we  should  expect 
as  complete  a  recasting  of  the  Beginning  of  Miracles  (Mk.  i  : 
21-45),  ^^  o^  ^^^^  Call  of  the  First  Disciples  (Mk,  i:  14-20). 
Such  is  in  fact  the  nature  of  Jn.  2:  1-12,  which  pragmatizes 
the  theme  of  Mt.  11:2-6,  16-19  =  Lk.  7:18-23,  31-35  on 
Jesus'  work  in  comparison  with  the  Baptist's.  His  healing 
ministry  is  purification  and  life;  his  message  of  redemption 
the  song  of  a  wedding  feast.*  It  should  be  superfluous  to 
point  out  that  a  "beginning  of  miracles"  of  this  sort  in  Cana, 
where  by  a  stupendous  prodigy  of  omnipotence  the  Son  of 
God  "manifests  his  glory,"  makes  a  subsequent  new  begin- 
ning in  Capernaum,  exciting  amazement  by  mere  exorcisms 
and  healings,  psychologically  impossible. 

The  section  of  Mark  which  occupies  the  remainder  of  his 
narrative  of  the  beginnings  of  Jesus'  ministry  is  often  en- 
titled the  Growth  of  Opposition  (Mk.  2:1-3:6).  Its  con- 
stituent incidents  are  doubtless  based  on  Petrine  story,  but 
these  in  the  section  as  it  stands  are  simply  woven  into  a 
group  based  upon,  and  in  Mark's  pragmatic  fashion  repro- 
ducing, the  older  Q  group  of  discourses  whose  leit-motif  is  the 
Stumbling  of  the  Jews  at  Jesus'  conduct,  because  he  was 
neither  a  scrupulous  observer  of  the  law  Hke  the  Pharisees, 
nor  an  ascetic  like  the  disciples  of  John  (Mt.  11:2-19  = 
Lk.  7:  18-50).  The  study  of  Jn.  5,  which  recasts  the  ma- 
terial of  Mk.  2 :  1-3 :  6  in  our  evangelist's  characteristic  man- 
ner, is  peculiarly  instructive,  because  we  are  able  to  com- 

1  For  the  symbolic  sense  see  the  commentaries  of  Hoitzmann,  Loisy,  and 
Heitmiiller.  A  traditional  basis  of  the  story  may  have  been  current.  Similar 
tales  of  the  change  of  water  to  wine  attach  to  the  river  Adonis,  sacred  to 
Dionysus,  because  of  its  extraordinary  annual  discoloration.  See  Epi- 
phanius,  Haer.  LI,  xxx,  and  cf.  Irenajus,  Haer.  I,  xiii.  For  those  who  take 
the  "detail"  of  the  six  waterpots  set  "according  to  the  Jew's  manner  of 
purification"  as  indicative  of  the  "eye-witness,"  we  would  suggest  com- 
parison of  Mk.  6:  43,  with  the  note  that  the  huge  amphora;  of  Jn.  6:  6 
(Xftfimi  iidplai)  require  each  too  men  to  transport. 


378  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

pare  it  with  Mark's  antecedent  combination  of  Petrinc  story 
with  Q. 

The  Q  discourse  was  introduced  by  the  incident  of  the 
coming  of  two  disciples  of  John  from  their  imprisoned  master 
to  inquire  concerning  the  work  of  Jesus  and  what  it  meant. 
This  work  is  then  described  in  its  two  factors  of  healing  and 
the  proclamation  of  "glad  tidings  to  the  poor."  ^  In  the 
Lukan  form  the  section  concludes  with  the  exquisite  intaglio 
of  the  Penitent  Harlot,  illustrating  the  adoring  love  and 
gratitude  of  the  pubHcans  and  sinners  on  the  one  side,  and 
the  offense  taken  by  Pharisees  on  the  other  at  Jesus'  assump- 
tion of  authority  to  declare  to  such  penitents  "Thy  sins  are 
forgiven."  In  this  version  Jesus  justifies  his  declaration  of 
God's  forgiveness  (not  his  own)  by  pointing  to  the  woman's 
manifestation  of  "love"  as  proof  of  the  fact.^  The  central 
portion  in  both  Synoptic  embodiments  of  Q  is  occupied  by  a 
discourse  of  Jesus  which  arraigns  the  religious  oligarchy  for 
its  rejection  of  both  the  Baptist's  message  of  funereal  wailing, 
and  his  own  of  wedding  music.  It  proceeds  to  justify  his 
"eating  and  drinking  with  publicans  and  sinners,"  and 
boldly  declares  the  termination  of  "law  and  prophets"  with 
John,  who  had  thrown  down  the  barriers  to  the  kingdom 
of  God  erected  by  the  scribes,  admitting  "Wisdom's  chil- 
dren." 

In  Mark  the  "disciples  of  John"  appear  only  for  the  con- 
trast between  Jesus'  "eating  and  drinking"  and  the  ascetic 
practices  which  they  themselves  share  with  the  Pharisees. 
Jesus'  disciples  are  "sons  of  the  bride-chamber"  and  there- 

1  The  expression  "the  poor"  to  designate  the  "unchurched"  classes 
(diroffwayuyoi)  is  borrowed  from  Is.  6i:  i.  The  third  evangelist  reemploys 
the  passage  in  a  scene  of  his  own  composing  in  Lk.  4:  16  S. 

2  This  representation  agrees  with  Mt.  21:31-32:  the  repentance  of  the 
publicans  and  harlots  proves  their  admission  to  the  kingdom  of  God.  Mark's 
recast  (Mk.  2:5-10)  applies  the  proof  of  Q  (Mt.  11:  5=Lk.  7:22)  in  a 
very  different  sense. 


TREATMENT  OF  SYNOPTICS  379 

fore  "cannot  fast"  (Mk.  2:  18-20).  The  work  of  Jesus  is 
concretely  exhibited  in  a  particular  instance  of  the  healing 
of  a  paralytic  which  the  evangelist  supplements  (quite  in- 
congruously) in  verses  5-10  with  a  declaration  to  the  patient 
(unsolicited),  "Thy  sins  are  forgiven."  "The  scribes  who 
were  sitting  there"  (!)  murmur,  "He  blasphemcth.  Who 
can  forgive  sins  but  one,  even  God?"  whereupon  Jesus 
proves  that  he  has  this  prerogative  by  proceeding  with  the  in- 
terrupted healing.  In  this  pragmatizing  version  of  Q's  story 
of  the  "stumbHng"  of  the  scribes  at  Jesus'  work  of  healing 
and  proclamation  of  "glad  tidings  to  the  poor"  a  long  step 
is  certainly  taken  toward  the  Johannine  point  of  view. 

In  verses  13-17  ISIark  pragmatizes  in  similar  fashion  upon 
the  objection  "a  glutton  and  wine-bibber,  a  friend  of  publi- 
cans and  sinners,"  giving  the  concrete  instance  of  "Levi." 
The  rest  of  the  section  (2:  21-3:6)  he  devotes  to  the  anti- 
legalism  of  Jesus  (c/.  Mt.  ii:i2f.  =  Lk.  16:16),  instanced 
by  two  cases  of  conflict  with  the  scribes  regarding  the  law 
of  the  sabbath.  The  concluding  incident  contrasts  Jesus' 
interpretation  of  the  law  as  intended  "to  save  Ufe"  with 
that  of  the  scribes,  who  use  it  "to  kill."  How,  then,  does 
the  Fourth  Gospel  handle  the  theme  ? 

In  Jn.  5  the  evangelist  follows  Mark  in  taking  as  his  point 
of  departure  the  healing  of  a  paralytic  whom  Jesus  bids 
"Arise,  take  up  thy  pallet  (Kpa^arro'?)  and  walk,"  though 
the  issue  of  the  "forgiveness  of  sins"  has  necessarily  to  be 
postponed  in  a  Gospel  which  makes  forgiveness  of  sins  a 
proclamation  of  the  apostles  (20:  23)  depending  on  the  aton- 
ing death  of  the  "Lamb  of  God."  ^  We  anticipate  also  the 
disappearance  of  the  "publicans  and  sinners."  Since  the 
days  of  Paul  the  spiritual  monopolists  had  become  "the 
Jews";  "the  poor"  on  behalf  of  whom  Jesus  speaks  are 

1  A  trace  remains,  however,  in  Jn.  5:  14,  "Sin  no  more,  lest  a  worse  thing 
befall  thee." 


38o  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

now  the  "believers."  Moreover,  the  hcahng  (5:1-9)  is 
transferred  to  Jerusalem  on  occasion  of  "a  feast  of  the 
Jews"  ^  and  symbolically  elaborated .^  In  verses  10-18  the 
Sabbath  controversy  with  "the  Jews"  is  brought  in  (with  a 
side  glance  at  the  blasphemy  of  Jesus  in  "making  himself 
equal  with  God";  c}.  Mk.  2:7)  by  the  statement  that  the 
occasion  of  the  heahng  was  a  sabbath.  Jesus  then  gives  his 
interpretation  of  true  sabbath  observance  as  the  constant 
imitation  of  "the  works  of  God,"  in  particular  the  giving  of 
"life"  [c/.  Mk.  3:4  andQ  (Mt.  11 :  5  =  Lk.  7:  22)].^  Finally, 
he  shows  the  true  function  of  John  the  Baptist  on  the  one 
side,  and  of  "the  law  and  the  prophets"  on  the  other,  as  mere 
witnesses  to  himself.  The  scribes  who  "think  they  have 
eternal  Hfe"  in  the  Scriptures  which  testify  of  Jesus,  are 
themselves  condemned  by  Moses  in  whom  they  trust,  be- 
cause they  reject  him,  the  true  Giver  of  life  (Jn.  5:30-47; 
c}.  Mk.  2:18-22;  Lk.  16:16). 

We  could  scarcely  ask  a  better  example  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel's  free  combination  of  Mark  and  the  Discourses,  in  a 
manner  to  "bring  out "  the  doctrinal  values.  Each  is  handled 
with  truly  Pauline  freedom,  but  with  high  loyalty  to  "spir- 
itual" truth.  The  motive  and  method  are  not  those  of  his- 
torical criticism,  but  of  haggada  and  midrash. 

After  omission  of  Mark's  section  on  the  Choosing,  Training, 
and  Mission  of  the  Twelve  (Mk.  3:7-6:13)  for  reasons 
above  explained,  we  find  the  Fourth  Gospel  again  in  the 
sixth  chapter  in  close  correspondence  to  Mark's  division  on 
the  Breaking  of  Bread  as  the  Sign  from  Heaven  granted  to 


1  Probably  Pentecost,  the  feast  of  the  Giving  of  the  Law,  was  originally 
intended.     See  Chapters  XV  and  XVI. 

2  On  the  symbolism,  see  the  commentaries  above  referred  to. 

3  With  this  function  of  the  Son  of  man  as  "Lord  of  the  sabbath"  (Mk.  2: 
28)  is  associated  its  converse,  the  execution  of  judgment  (Jn.  5:  22-29;  c/. 
Mk.  3:  5-6). 


TREATMENT  OF  SYNOPTICS  381 

the  disciples  but  refused  to  the  Pharisees,  and  the  Confes- 
sion of  Peter  (Mk.  6:  14-9:  29;  cj.  especially  Mk.  8:  11-21 
with  Jn.  6:30-59),  After  the  example  of  Jn.  5  detailed 
comparison  with  Mark  is  needless.  We  only  note  two  things: 
(i)  Our  evangelist  follows  Luke  in  substituting  a  Samariian 
mission  for  the  Gentile  mission  of  Mk.  7:  24 — 8:  26,  reserv- 
ing his  utterance  on  the  calling  of  the  Gentiles  for  the  close 
of  the  ministry  when  Jesus  has  been  definitively  rejected  by 
the  Jews  (12:20-36).  The  section  combining  the  equiva- 
lents of  ]\Iark's  incident  of  the  Syro-Phcenician  Woman  and 
Q's  Centurion's  Servant  are  now  found  in  Jn.  4,  doubtless 
inserted  at  this  point  rather  than  later  because  of  the  con- 
nection of  the  former  with  the  doctrine  of  Baptism  and  the 
Gift  of  the  Spirit.! 

(2)  Some  of  the  material  of  Mk.  6:14-9:50  is  utilized 
elsewhere  in  John,  after  the  example  set  by  both  Matthew 
and  Luke;  in  particular  the  heahng  of  the  BUnd  Man  with 
clay  and  spittle  (Mk.  8:  22-26;  cj.  Jn.  9:  i  flf.);  and  the  con- 
nected Denunciation  of  the  Scribes  who  said,  "He  hath 
Beelzebub"  as  "blind  leaders"  guilty  of  the  Unforgivable 
Sin  (Mt.  i2:22-37  =  Lk.  11:14-36;  i2:io  =  Mk.  7:1-23; 
3:  22-30;  cj.  Jn.  9:  13-41;  10:  19-21).  The  Transfiguration 
(Mk.  9:2-13)  has  its  substitute  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  as  a 
whole,  though  reflected  in  Jn.  i:  14  and  12:  28-30;  the  In- 
structions to  the  Twelve  on  True  Primacy  (Mk.  9:30-50) 
came  later  by  the  evangelist's  plan  (Jn.  13:  1-17).  As  for 
the  exorcisms  of  Mk.  7:31-37  and  9:  14-29,  they  were  ex- 
cluded on  principle.  Nothing  accordingly  of  JNIarkan  ma- 
terial remains  unaccounted  for.  The  fourth  evangelist  really 
employs  every  available  shred  of  Mark  in  his  own  way;  nor 
has  he  even  added,  except  from  Luke. 

The  section  of  Mark  on  the  Peraean  Ministry  (Mk.  10) 

1  On  indications  of  transpositions  of  material  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  from 
its  original  order  see  Chapter  XIX. 


382  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

has  but  a  single  miracle,  the  healing  of  Blind  Bartimaeus,  in 
which  even  Matthew  and  Luke  seem  already  to  have  in- 
corporated the  Blind  Man  of  Bethsaida.  Jn.  9  restores  the 
Markan  traits  of  the  clay  and  spittle,  transferring  the  healing, 
Uke  that  of  the  Paralytic  in  Chapter  5,  to  Jerusalem,  with 
characteristic  elaboration,  manifestly  symbolic  in  purpose 
(9:  7).  On  the  other  hand,  while  we  recognize  in  Jn.  7 :  1-13 
a  certain  resemblance  to  the  situation  of  Mk.  10:  i,  where 
Jesus  and  the  Twelve  are  leaving  "houses  and  brethren  and 
sisters"  for  the  way  of  martyrdom,  still  we  miss,  at  first 
sight,  the  distinctive  figure  of  this  section  of  Mark,  the  Rich 
Man  who  came  to  Jesus  asking  the  way  of  eternal  life.  In 
Mk.  10:  17-22  he  stands  opposed  on  the  one  side  to  the 
"babes"  whom  Jesus  had  welcomed  to  "the  kingdom  of 
God,"  on  the  other  to  the  disciples  who  have  "left  all  and 
followed"  him.  This  "ruler"  (so  Luke)  we  have  already 
recognized,  however,  in  the  Johannine  figure  of  Nicodemus, 
rich  and  acknowledging  in  Jesus  a  "teacher  come  from  God," 
but  unable  to  "turn  again  and  become  as  a  Httle  child"  or 
to  accept  the  doctrine  of  the  Cross  (Jn.  3: 1-21).  The  em- 
bodied interpretation  of  the  doctrine  of  baptism  (3:5)  is 
doubtless  responsible  for  its  removal  to  the  earlier  context; 
for  it  bears  many  marks  of  having  once  stood  after  Jn.  7 :  30, 
where  Tatian  has  placed  it,  in  the  same  chapter  where  Nico- 
demus reappears  in  the  role  of  a  Gamahel  (7:  50  f.).^ 

Of  the  Markan  material  of  the  Peraean  ministry  the  only 
elements  not  really  taken  over  by  the  Fourth  Gospel  are  the 
controversy  with  the  scribes  on  the  Mosaic  law  of  divorce 
(Mk.  10:  2-12;  but  compare  Jn.  7:  15-24),  and  the  Offer  of 
the  Sons  of  Zebedee  (Mk.  10:35-45).  Both  of  these  had 
previously  been  canceled  by  Luke.  Of  the  scene  of  the  Raising 
of  Lazarus,  compounded  of  Mk.  5:35-43  and  Lk.  10:38- 
42;  16:  19-31,  we  have  already  spoken. 

1  On  this  displacement  see  below,  Chapter  XIX. 


TREATMENT  OF  SYNOPTICS  383 

It  is  needless  to  compare  the  Markan  story  of  the  Passion 
and  Resurrection  (Mk,  11-16)  with  the  Johannine.  We 
have  seen  already  how  drastic  the  recasting  must  be  which 
would  here  do  justice  to  Johannine  Christology;  also  that 
Luke  had  already  determined  its  general  nature,  at  least  as 
regards  the  Resurrection  scenes,  while  the  Betrayal  and 
Agony  in  Gethsemane  would  suggest  their  own  conditions 
of  recasting.  In  this  section  detailed  comparison  would 
again  prove  the  evangelist's  complete  loyalty  to  the  two 
essential  elements  of  Synoptic  story,  Pctrinc  narrative  and 
Mattha?an  discourse,  subject  always  to  his  formative  prin- 
ciple of  the  "spiritual"  gospel  of  Paul.  The  wonder  is  that 
so  little  disappears  of  the  Markan  basis.  The  most  conspic- 
uous instance  is  the  displacement  of  the  Purging  of  the 
Temple  (Mk.  11:  15-18)  by  the  Raising  of  Lazarus  as  the 
occasion  of  the  conspiracy  against  Jesus'  life  (Jn.  11 :  47-53). 
A  later  hand,  as  we  shall  see,  has  reinstated  the  episode, 
though  on  a  Matthaean  basis,  and  in  an  impossible  context. 
Of  this  more  hereafter.  As  a  question  of  historicity  we  may 
leave  the  Markan  and  the  Johannine  explanations  of  the 
conspiracy  against  Jesus'  Hfe  to  make  their  own  impres- 
sion. 

Our  study  of  the  evangelist's  relation  to  his  sources  shows 
him  to  depend  not  on  external  eye-witness,  but  on  "spiritual" 
insight.  He  has  certain  qualifications  for  his  task  which 
belong  to  the  merely  external  order.  He  is  a  Jew  and  a 
teacher.  He  knows  Jerusalem  and  its  environs  and  the 
northward  road  through  Samaria  to  the  sea  "of  Tiberias" 
by  personal  visit.  He  can  add  perhaps  here  and  there  a 
minute  trace  of  much  distorted  historic  tradition.  In  one 
conspicuous  instance  to  be  separately  discussed  ^  he  brings 
an  important  historical  correction  of  Mark's  inaccuracy; 
though  even  here  the  motive  is  not  historical  but  ritual.    His 

»  Chapter  XVI. 


384  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

real  qualification,  as  he  himself  would  have  defined  it,  lies 
in  his  transcendent  ability  so  to  restate  the  tradition  of 
Jesus'  deeds  and  words  as  to  bring  out  its  "spiritual"  values 
"for  teaching,  for  reproof,  for  correction  (moral  and  doc- 
trinal), for  instruction  which  is  in  righteousness." 


CHAPTER  XV 

JOHANNINE   TOPOGRAPHY   AND   CHRONOLOGY 

We  have  already  distinguished  in  Cha])lcT  XIII  between 
the  "graphic  detail"  of  midrash,  imagined  or  inferred  for  a 
doctrinal  or  apologetic  purpose,  and  detail  of  the  veritable 
eye-witness,  which  reveals  its  true  character  by  a  relation  to 
the  history  in  its  larger  aspects.  Detail  of  the  latter  type  is, 
as  we  have  seen,  almost  wholly  wanting  to  the  Fourth  Gos- 
pel. Two  points,  however,  were  deferred  for  more  special 
consideration:  (i)  the  fourth  evangehst's  topography,  which 
not  only  differs  in  a  very  striking  way  from  the  Synoptic,  but 
admittedly  indicates  a  first-hand  knowledge  of  certain  Pales- 
tinian localities;  (2)  his  chronology,  which  is  equally  pecul- 
iar, and  which  also,  in  our  judgment,  indicates  use  of  in- 
dependent Palestinian  tradition.  The  first  of  these  questions 
may  be  very  briefly  discussed  in  the  present  chapter.  The 
second  is  more  closely  related  than  the  first  to  the  system  of 
correspondences  with  the  Jewish  festal  and  calendar  system 
on  which  this  evangelist  has  schematized  his  story.  The 
discussion  of  it,  therefore,  must  to  some  extent  be  carried 
over  to  Chapter  XVI,  on  Johannine  Quartodecimanism;  for 
Quartodecimanism,  as  already  defined,  is  simply  the  reten- 
tion in  Christianized  form  of  the  Jewish  observance  of  the 
Fourteenth  Nisan.  In  Asia  tliis  becomes  "the  true  passover 
of  the  Lord,  the  great  Sacrifice,"  ^  and  the  Fourth  Gospel 
reflects  the  practice  in  its  representation  of  Jesus'  attend- 
ance at  the  "feasts  of  the  Jews." 

It  is  needless  to  repeat  what  has  been  well  said  by  others, 

1  Above,  p.  247  f. 
Fourth  Gospel — 25  385 


386  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

especially  by  Professor  Sanday,  on  the  evidence  for  our 
evangelist's  personal  acquaintance  with  scenes  in  and  about 
Jerusalem,  Sychar,  and  Tiberias.  Here  we  have  allusions  to 
sites  in  the  Holy  City,  its  temple  and  environs,  to  scenes 
famous  in  the  story  of  the  patriarch  Jacob,  and  to  Gahlean 
villages  whose  very  names  are  absent  from  the  Synoptics. 
Bethany  "about  fifteen  furlongs  off"  from  Jerusalem,  the 
"Kidron"  valley,  the  "pavement"  called  Gabbatha,  where 
Pilate's  ^7]/jLa  used  to  be  set  up,  the  colonnades  of  the  temple, 
including  "Solomon's,"  its  "treasury,"  the  pool  of  "Siloam" 
and  that  of  "Bethesda"  with  its  "five  colonnades"  are  all 
mentioned  only  by  "John,"  and  in  such  a  way  as  could 
hardly  be  done  without  personal  acquaintance  with  the 
localities.  Moving  northward  through  Samaria  we  pass  the 
"city  called  Ephraim,"  ^  a  refuge  of  Jesus,  according  to 
the  fourth  evangelist,  during  the  last  weeks  of  the  ministry. 
In  Samaria  we  find  ourselves  in  a  group  of  locaHties  almost 
certainly  visuaHzed  by  our  evangelist.  Here  is  "Jacob's 
well,"  too  "deep"  for  its  waters  to  be  reached  by  one  who 
"has  nothing  to  draw  with,"  and  sunk  in  "the  parcel  of 
ground  which  Jacob  gave  to  his  son  Joseph."  "This  moun- 
tain" where  the  Samaritans  worship,  overhangs  it.  The 
"city  (!)  called  Sychar"  -  nestles  about  a  mile  further  north 
at  the  foot  of  Ebal.  Three  miles  eastward,  in  plain  view 
over  the  gently  undulating  "parcel  of  ground,"  is  Jacob's 
city  of  Salim  [Gen.  33:  18  (LXX)],  while  northward  some 
five  miles  down  the  valley  one  sees  the  ruined  tower  Burj 
el-Far 'a  surrounded  by  "many  waters"  in  the  most  copious 

1  Usually  identified  with  Et-Tajyibeh,  near  Bethel  on  a  conspicuous 
height  east  of  the  highroad  to  Nablous  (Shechem). 

2  The  identification  with  'Ain-'Askar  is  vety  probable.  The  only  ques- 
tion is  whether  this  tiny  hamlet  can  ever  have  been  called  a  "city"  (Jn.  4:  5), 
and  may  not  rather  have  acquired  both  name  and  existence  during  the 
pilgrimage  period  of  the  fourth  century  through  the  inquiries  of  pilgrims 
for  "Sychar." 


TOPOGRAPHY  AND  CHRONOLOGY         387 

springs  and  pools  of  the  whole  hill-country  of  Ephraim. 
The  name  "^non"  (/.  e.,  "Springs")  no  longer  attaches  to 
them,  but  only  to  the  miserable  modern  hamlet  'Ainlin, 
"without  a  drop  of  water,"  huddled  for  safety  on  the  summit 
of  a  height  some  two  miles  further  northeast.  As  this  is  the 
only  SaUm  known  to  Palestine,  and  the  only  'Ain^n  north  of 
Hebron,  we  are  disposed  to  be  less  skeptical  than  Pro- 
fessor Sanday  in  identifying  the  glorious  springs  and  pools  of 
el-Far  'a  with  the  fourth  evangelist's  scene  for  the  later 
career  of  the  Baptist  (Jn,  4:  23).^  Again  in  Galilee  our 
evangelist  has  traditions  (?)  concerning  "Cana."  He  knows 
that  one  "descends"  from  Cana  in  less  than  a  day  "to 
Capernaum"  (4:  52;  2:  12),  and  seems  to  imply  that  it  is  not 
far  from  Nazareth  (2:1).  He  knows  the  location  of  Tiberias, 
and  that  a  boat  going  thence  to  Capernaum  (Tell  Hum)  and 
"in  the  midst  of  the  sea"  is  "about  five  and  twenty  or  thirty 
furlongs"  from  shore  (6:  19).  How  could  such  information 
be  obtained  in  an  age  destitute  of  maps  and  gazetteers, 
without  an  actual  visit  to  these  scenes? 

On  the  other  hand,  how  rapidly  this  notable  knowledge, 
far  transcending  the  meager  allusions  of  the  Synoptics,  dis- 
appears as  soon  as  we  leaN'e  the  beaten  track  from  Jeru- 
salem to  the  sea  "of  Tiberias."  "Beyond  Jordan"  is  for 
"John"  the  scene  both  of  the  Baptist's  earher  activity,  and 
of  the  Peraean  ministry  described  by  Luke.  What  becomes 
of  the  "graphic  reahsm  of  the  eye-witness"  in  these  regions? 
One  name  alone  is  mentioned,  "Bethany  beyond  Jordan." 
Diligent  search,  continued   since  the  time  of  Origen  and 

1  Professor  Sanday  gives  his  reasons  for  rejecting  the  identification  of 
"^non  near  to  Saiim  "  with  the  modern  'Ainun  in  Sacred  Sites  of  the  Gospel, 
1903,  pp.  33-36.  His  criticism  of  the  author  of  Macmiiian's  Guide  is  justi- 
fied. We  have  given  reasons  elsewhere  for  the  identification  with  el-Far  'a, 
and  for  rejecting  that  of  Eusebius,  Jerome,  and  Silvia,  who  located  it  at  a 
place  then  called  Sedima  and  pointed  to  as  "the  city  of  Melchizedek."  See 
The  Biblical  World,  art.  ".(^non  near  to  Salim,"  April,  1909. 


388  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Eusebius,  has  failed  to  reveal  it.  Batneh  near  es-Salt  is  the 
latest  desperate  guess;  but  at  Batneh  (  =  Betonim  of  Jos. 
13:26?)  the  Baptist  would  have  had  to  depend  on  cistern 
water  and  live  in  a  village  community.^  Jericho,  so  notable 
a  stage  in  Jesus'  last  journey  in  the  Synoptics,  now  fails  to 
appear.  According  to  our  evangelist  to  reach  Galilee  from 
Jerusalem  Jesus  "must  needs  go  through  Samaria."  From 
the  scene  of  John's  baptizing  "beyond  Jordan"  he  arrives 
with  his  disciples  "on  the  third  day"  (!)  in  Cana  of  Gahlee, 
The  "graphic  reaHsm  of  the  eye-witness"  seems  not  to  ex- 
tend "beyond  Jordan." 

And  when  we  look  again  at  the  data  which  are  correct, 
how  singularly  they  correspond  with  just  the  sites,  and  only 
those,  which  could  be  and  would  be  pointed  out  to  the  devout 
pilgrim.  There  is  no  mention  of  the  great  city  of  Neapolis 
just  hidden  over  the  low  watershed  from  the  scenes  of  the 
patriarch  Jacob's  life,  but  only  of  "Sychar"  (  =  'Askar), 
which  the  pilgrim  on  the  northward  road  would  pass  through. 
The  scenes  which  attract  notice  in  Samaria  are  "the  parcel 
of  ground  which  Jacob  gave  to  his  son  Joseph,"  "Jacob's 
well,"  Jacob's  city.  In  Galilee  we  have  mention  of  "the 
place  where  he  [Jesus]  made  the  water  wine";  or  of  Tiberias 
"nigh  unto  the  place  where  they  ate  the  loaves";  or  of 
scenes  immediately  connected  with  Peter's  story.  True 
"Bethsaida"  is  called  the  "city"  of  Phihp,  as  well  as  of 
Andrew  and  Peter  (1:44); — but  so  it  was  to  Josephus  also 
the  "city"  of  "Philip."  ^  Thus  the  existence  here  of  separate 
historical  tradition  becomes  questionable  again.  In  Judaea 
we  have  mention  of  "the  village  of  Mary  and  her  sister 
Martha";  in  Jerusalem  of  the  temple,  the  pools,  the  Preto- 

1  A  visit  by  the  present  writer  to  Batneh,  is  described,  with  photographs, 
in  The  Bihl.  World  for  July,  1907.  It  lies  almost  at  the  summit  of  the  de- 
clivity of  the  eastern  plateau,  a  good  half  day's  journey  beyond  the  Jordan. 

2  7.  e.,  Herod  Philip.— See  Ant.  XVIII,  ii,  i. 


TOPOGRAPHY  AND  CHROxNOLOGY         389 

rium,  the  Pavement,  the  Tomb — all  sites  which  no  devasta- 
tions of  war  could  obliterate/  and  about  which  sacred  legend 
would  begin  at  once  to  weave  its  romance.  Admittedly  the 
fourth  evangelist  has  new  stores  of  topographical  knowledge, 
of  which  he  makes  ample  use  to  lend  graphic  touches  to  his 
narrative;  but  of  what  kind  ?  The  limitation  of  his  evidences 
of  knowledge  to  a  particular  line  of  travel  and  a  particular 
class  of  data,  and  still  more  the  interest  in  which  they  are 
adduced,  which  includes  the  transfer  from  Galilee  to  Jeru- 
salem of  the  center  of  gravity  of  Jesus'  work  (Jn.  7:  3),  be- 
speak not  the  comjmnion  of  Jesus'  walks  about  the  villages 
of  Galilee  and  Pera-a,  but  the  pilgrim  antiquary  of  a  century 
after,  whose  starting  point  is  Jerusalem. 

If  the  Lukan  tendency  to  gravitate  toward  Jerusalem  -  is 
markedly  developed  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  the  case  is  still 
more  pronounced  in  respect  to  chronology.  Consistently 
with  his  attempt  to  apply  the  methods  of  the  historiographer, 
Luke  has  prefaced  his  transcript  of  Mark's  account  of  the 
ministry  with  an  elaborate  though  not  altogether  accurate 
group  of  synchronisms  to  determine  precisely  the  sacred 
year,  "the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord"  of  Lk.  4:  19.  For 
the  primitive  understanding  that  the  public  career  of  Jesus 
had  covered  but  a  single  year  is  almost  unbroken.-''  Even  the 
appearance  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  with  its  three  passovers,  if 
not  more,  during  the  ministry  did  not  noticeably  affect  this 
generally  accepted  datum  of  evangeUc  tradition  until  the 

1  Thus  the  present  f<xriv  in  Jn.  5:  2  is  to  be  accounted  for.  To  this  day 
the  pool  in  question  is  in  Jerusalem. 

2  See  e.  g.,  Lk.  1-2;  4:  44  (read  "  Judaa"),  and  especially  Chapter  24. 

3  Note,  e.  g.,  Clem.  Horn.  XVII,  xix.  "Why  did  our  Teacher  abide  and 
discourse  a  whole  year?"  and  see  Irena^us,  as  quoted  below,  p.  394.  With 
these  authorities  belong  Clem.  Al.  {Strom,  I,  145;  VI,  279),  Julius  Africanus, 
Hippolytus  in  his  later  works,  and  Origen  in  his  earlier.  Por  a  two  to  three 
years'  ministry  Melito,  Heracleon,  Tatian,  and  Hippolytus  on  Daniel  may 
be  cited.    The  latter  are  manifestly  influenced  by  the  Fourth  (]o.spel. 


390  *        THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

fourth  century.  It  was,  as  Drummond  justly  obsen^es, 
"too  well  grounded  to  be  easily  displaced."  ^  The  Asian 
church  claimed,  as  we  have  seen,  to  have  maintained  its 
observance  of  "the  Fast"  in  commemoration  of  Jesus' 
death  on  every  recurring  fourteenth  of  Nisan  since  the  days 
of  the  apostles.^  Under  such  conditions  it  would  be  strange 
indeed  if  the  year  from  which  the  observance  started  was  not 
soon  approximately  fixed,  as  it  so  easily  might  be,  by  some 
form  of  absolute  dating.  In  point  of  fact  we  know  that  at  a 
very  early  time  it  was  so  fixed  by  use  of  the  consular  lists 
as  the  "year  of  the  two  Gemini"  [/.  ^.,  29  a.  d.,  whose  consuls 
were  L.  Rubelhus  Geminus,  and  C.  Fufius  (var.  Rufius, 
Rufus,  Fusius)  Geminus].  In  reality  this  date,  while  ex- 
tremely ancient,  and  surely  not  far  from  the  truth,  is  demon- 
strably incorrect  and  artificial.^  Arguments  based  on  the 
Jewish  calendar  system  are  somewhat  disputed  and  pre- 
carious, so  that  to  fix  positively  the  year  of  Pilate's  admin- 
istration in  which  Nisan  14  (or,  according  to  the  Synoptic 
date  for  Jesus'  death,  Nisan  15)  can  have  fallen  on  a  Friday, 
may  be  beyond  our  power.  There  are,  however,  certain 
years  which  can  be  certainly  and  positively  excluded;  and 
one  of  these  is  the  year  29  a.  d.  We  can  say  with  almost 
absolute  certainty,  the  Crucifixion  did  not  occur  in  29  a.  d.'* 

1  Char,  and  Authorship,  p.  47.  See  especially  the  note  citing  the  "great 
number  of  references  to  writers  who  limited  the  ministry  to  one  year"  in 
Ezra  Abbott:  Authorship  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  ut  supra,  p.  73,  note. 

2  Above,  p.  257. 

3  Turner,  in  his  admirable  article  in  Hastings'  Bible  Diet.,  s.  v.  "Chronology 
of  the  New  Testament,"  is  so  justly  impressed  with  the  great  antiquity  and 
historical  credibility  of  this  date-  as  to  give  it  his  own  adhesion.  A  more 
exact  study  of  the  Jewish  calendar  system  in  the  Talmudic  treatise  Rosh 
ha-Shana  would  have  saved  him,  however,  from  the  error  which  leads  him 
in  this  respect  to  do  violence  to  the  astronomical  argument.  This  latter, 
especially  as  developed  bj^  Fotheringham  (see  below)  is  decisive  against 
29  A.  D.  as  a  possible  date  for  the  crucifixion. 

4  The  best  demonstration  is  that  of  Fotheringham  {Journ.  of  Philol.,  1Q03, 
pp.  100  ff.).    Even  Achelis,  however  {Gott.  gel.  Nachr.,  phil.  hist.  Kl.,  1902, 


TOPOGRAPHY  AND  CHRONOLOGY        391 

Nay,  more;  we  can  explain  with  a  very  high  degree  of  proba- 
bility the  origin  of  this  date  29  a.  d.,  erroneous  as  it  is.  It  was 
probably  adopted  by  the  earlier  chronographers  for  the  same 
reason  which  led  Hippolytus  later  to  make  it  the  basis  of  his 
own  elaborate  system.  In  29  A.  d.  the  vernal  equinox  of  the 
Julian  calendar  fell  on  Friday,  March  25.  Now  we  learn 
from  Epiphanius  ^  of  certain  Quartodecimans  of  Cappadocia 
who  on  authority  of  the  Acts  of  Pilate,  a  work  we  have  found 
to  be  employed  by  Justin  Martyr,^  observed  the  anniversary 
on  jMarch  25  th  of  each  year,  precisely  as  the  church  of  Rome 
and  the  west  has  adopted  December  25th  (the  Julian  winter 
solstice)  as  the  anniversary  of  the  Nativity.  An  important 
exception  proves  the  nature  and  reason  of  this  rule.  Other 
Asian  Quartodecimans  who  quoted  the  same  authority  in  a 
variant  reading,  observ'ed  the  anniversary  on  March  i8th. 
This  had  not  only  the  advantage  of  meeting  the  lunar  con- 
ditions of  the  year  29  a.  d.,  in  which,  as  current  lunar  cycles 
would  show,  the  full  moon  occurred  on  IMarch  i8th,  but  also 
coincided  with  the  astronomical  equinox  of  the  same  calendar 
when  the  sun  enters  Aries.  Our  own  practice  in  obsen-ing 
the  Nativity  on  December  25th  shows  what  advantages  there 
would  be  for  Christians  concerned  to  commemorate  an- 
nually "the  exact  day"  of  the  crucifixion,  in  abandoning  the 
complicated  Jewish  lunar  calendar,  dependent  as  it  was  on 
the  "sanctification"  by  the  Sanhedrin  of  the  new  moon  of 
Nisan  as  the  beginning  of  the  year,  and  substituting  the 
vernal  equinox  of  the  Julian  calendar  already  in  general  use 

pp.  707  ff.),  who  follows  the  inaccurate  method  of  Wurm,  Anger,  and  Wieseler 
in  dating  from  astronomic  new  moon,  or  a  uniform  36  hours  after,  instead 
of  from  actual  phasis,  as  the  Jews  certainly  reckoned,  excludes  29  A.  D. 
from  possible  years.  He  makes  Nisan  14  of  29  a.  d.  to  fall  on  Sunday, 
April  17th.  By  Synoptic  tradition  it  would  have  to  be  Thursday;  by  Johan- 
nine  Friday. 

1  Haer.  I,  i;  L,  i,  23. 

2  Above,  p.  41. 


392  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

throughout  the  empire.  Practical  convenience,  and  disHke 
of  dependence  on  the  hated  Jews,  will  have  had  almost  as 
much  to  do  with  the  adoption  of  the  Cappadocian  plan,  as 
the  symbolism  immemorially  connected  with  the  reawakening 
of  life  at  vernal  equinox.  The  remarkable  coincidence  that 
in  "the  year  of  the  two  Gemini"  (29  a.  d.),  which  fell  about 
midway  in  the  high  priesthood  of  Caiaphas  and  procurator- 
ship  of  Pilate,  the  two  vernal  equinoxes  March  i8th  and 
25th  fell  on  Fridays,  Friday  being  the  known  week-day  of  the 
crucifixion,  is  quite  sufficient  to  account  for  the  early  and 
universal  adoption  of  this  date  as  marking  the  year  of  the 
crucifixion.^ 

It  is  much  more  difficult  to  determine  whether  our  third 
evangehst  already  has  this  date  in  mind  in  fixing  the  begin- 
ning of  the  ministry  with  so  great  pains  in  "the  fifteenth 
year  of  Tiberius"  (Lk.  3:  i),  or  whether  we  should  regard  it 
as  mere  coincidence  that  his  chronology  also  attains  the 
same  result. 

As  Turner  has  admirably  shown,^  both  dates,  Tiberii  XV 
and  Tiberii  XVI,  were  current  early  in  the  second  century 
as  designations  of  "the  year  of  the  two  Gemini."  Luke,  ac- 
cordingly, cannot  be  supposed  to  be  following  any  different 
tradition,  but  only  employs  that  common  method  of  dating 
which  reckoned  the  first  year  of  the  emperor  as  beginning 
from  the  next  preceding  consulship  (January  i),  or  possibly, 
as  Josephus  does,  with  the  preceding  Passover,  thus  reaching 
the  equivalence  Passover  29  a.  d.=  Tiberii  XVI,^  instead  of 

1  The  possibility  also  remains  open  that  the  year  29  A.  D.  was  fixed  with 
reference  to  the  Jewish  era  of  the  temple  (20-19  b.  c),  on  the  assumption 
(on  which  see  below)  that  Jesus'  life  covered  one  jubilee  (7x7)  of  years. 

2  Hastings'  Bible  Diet.,  s.  v.  "Chronology  of  N.  T.,"  p.  413. 

3  The  accession  of  Tiberius  was  August  9,  14  A.  D.  Efforts  to  accommo- 
date Lk.  3:  I  to  other  systems,  ancient  or  modern,  by  introducing  one  or 
more  additional  years  as  years  of  "coregency"  with  Augustus,  are  un- 
scientific. 


TOPOGRAPHY  AND  CHRONOLOGY         393 

that  which  failed  to  reckon  in  the  fraction  of  a  year,  and 
thus  made  Passover  29  a.  d.  =  Tiberii  X\'. 

However  attained,  the  starting  point  of  gospel  chronology 
was  certainly  this  date  for  the  crucifixion.*  The  fact  that  it  is 
astronomically  inadmissible,  but  can  be  accounted  for  by  a 
priori  reasoning,  that  it  appears  "in  so  many  authorities  that 
the  common  source  must  ascend  to  a  remote  antiquity,"  - 
and  finally  that  the  Lukan  version  represents  but  one  of  two 
equivalent  forms,  makes  it  most  probable  that  its  origin, 
although  speculative  and  unhistorical,  is  more  ancient  than 
the  third  gospel  itself. 

We  must  think  of  our  third  evangelist,  accordingly,  as 
elaborating  his  synchronisms  of  Lk.  3 :  i  on  the  basis  of  this 
first  century  date  for  the  crucifixion.  As  we  have  seen,  a 
twelvemonth  for  the  ministry,  if  not  already  traditional,^ 
soon  became  so.  The  one  new  feature  added  by  "Luke," 
and  added,  as  we  have  reason  to  think,  in  disagreement  with 
an  earUer  though  vague  tradition,  was  the  date  of  Jesus' 
birth,  with  the  implied  determination  of  his  age  in  the  year 
of  the  ministry  as  "about  30  years"  (Lk.  3:23).  Both 
Basilidean  and  Valentinian  gnosis  took  up  these  two  data. 
The  Valentinians  in  particular  brought  the  t^^•elve  months 
of  the  ministry  and  the  thirty  years  of  Jesus'  age  into  cor- 
respondence with  their  duodecads  and  triple  decads  of 
iEons, 


1  Turner  (Hastings'  Bible  Did.,  s.  v.  "Chronolog}'  of  the  N.  T.,"  p.  414&) 
rightly  distinguishes  the  greater  relative  importance  to  the  Church,  and 
hence  earlier  fixation  of  the  date  of  the  Passover.  "  Here  was  to  every 
Christian  eye  from  the  first  the  turning  point  of  the  world's  evolution,  and 
the  Church's  confession  had  always  put  in  the  forefront  the  historical  setting 
'under  Pontius  Pilate.'  "  He  adduces  not  only  I  Tim.  6:  12,  but  Ign.  ad 
Magn.  xi,  and  the  "Apostles'  "  Creed. 

2  Turner,  ibid. 

3  The  annual  recurrence  of  the  celebration  of  the  death  and  resurrection 
at  Passover  would  tend  to  limit  the  outline  of  evangelic  story  to  a  cyclic  year. 


394  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

"the  passion  which  took  place  in  the  case  of  the  twelfth  ^on 
being  indicated  by  the  apostasy  of  Judas  who  was  the  twelfth 
apostle,  and  also  by  the  fact  that  Christ  suffered  in  the  twelfth 
month.  For  their  opinion  is  that  he  continued  to  preach  for  one 
year  only  after  his  baptism."  ^ 

With  both  these  chronological  data  the  Fourth  Gospel  takes 
decided  issue,  reverting,  as  will  be  shown,  to  pre-Lukan" 
tradition  in  the  matter  of  Jesus'  age,  and  extending  the 
duration  of  the  ministry  (in  this  respect  also  coming  in  all 
probability  nearer  to  historic  fact)  over  at  least  two  years. 

Whether  the  temple  synchronism  of  Jn.  2:13-22  starts 
from  the  same  fixed  date  as  those  of  Luke  (Passion  at  Pass- 
over 29  A.  D.=Tiberii  XV-XVI),  or  not,  the  insertion  of  the 
story  at  this  point  corresponds  to  Luke's  setting  of  the 
proclamation  at  Nazareth,  "  where  Jesus  was  brought  up," 
of  "the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord."  We  merely  have  in- 
stead of  Jesus'  offer  of  himself  to  his  fellow-townsmen  and  his 
rejection,  an  offer  of  himself  in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  to 
"the  Jews."  In  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  which  (historically) 
withhold  the  declaration  of  the  Messiahship  till  the  end,  this 
overt  act  of  challenge  to  the  hierocracy  marks  of  necessity  the 
beginning  of  the  final  catastrophe.  Jesus  maintains  himself 
for  a  few  days  on  the  strength  of  his  popularity  with  the 
masses.  The  priests  demand  his  authority  for  this  invasion 
of  their  precincts,  but  to  overcome  it  are  forced  by  their 
"fear  of  the  people"  to  resort  to  conspiracy  rather  than  open 
violence.  This  story  accounts  historically  both  for  the  fact 
of  Jesus'  death  at  the  instigation  of  "the  chief  priests,"  and 
also  for  the  indirectness  and  delay  in  bringing  it  about.  The 
fourth  evangelist  has  little  regard  for  mere  considerations 
of  historical  interrelation  of  cause  and  eft'ect,  and  therefore 
thinks  nothing  of  divorcing  this  opening  scene  of  the  final 

1  Irenacus,  Haer.  I,  iii,  3.    Irenasus  himself  extends  the  ministry  to  twenty  (!) 
years. 


tc)pc)c;raphy  and  chronology      395 

conflict  in  Jerusalem  from  its  necessary  conditions  and  neces- 
sary consequences.  Considerations  of  theoretic  propriety, 
such  as  move  the  third  evangehst  to  transform  Mk.  6:  i-6  into 
a  programmatic  discourse  of  Jesus  in  his  irarpi'i  (Lk.  4: 
16  ff".),  induce  the  transfer  of  this  Synoptic  scene  of  the 
Visitation  of  the  Temple  {cj.  Mai.  3 :  1-4)  to  the  place  it 
logically  must  occupy  in  a  Gospel  which  makes  it  Jesus' 
first  task  to  commend  himself  to  Israel  as  Messiah  and 
Incarnate  Son  of  God.  There  is  no  consideration  given  to 
the  fact  that  the  purging  of  the  temple,  a  huge  fortress, 
with  its  "captain  of  the  temple"  ^  and  garrison  of  organized 
Levitical  police  could  not  be  carried  out  before  Jesus  had 
reached  the  zenith  of  his  popularity  with  the  masses,  nor  to 
the  fact  that  when  carried  out  all  its  consequences-,  including 
those  of  the  saying  on  "destroying  the  temple,"  could  not  lie 
quiescent  for  a  period  of  two  or  three  years,  awaiting  Jesus' 
return  to  Jerusalem.  The  one  consideration  for  the  fourth 
evangelist  is  that  if  Jesus  is  to  offer  himself  to  Israel  as  the 
Christ  he  should  do  so  at  once,  at  the  Passover,  before  the 
assembled  nation  in  his  "Father's  house."  For  this  reason 
the  Purging  of  the  Temple  takes  the  place  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel  of  the  Lukan  Preaching  in  Nazareth. 

But  while  this  writer  has  properly  drawn  together  the 
incident  of  Mt.  21 :  12  f.  and  its  sequel  related  in  verses  23- 
32,^  avoiding  the  interruption  of  Mk.  11:  19-25,  he  will  not 
lose,  it  would  seem,  the  opportunity  to  bring  in  a  correction 
of  the  Lukan  chronology  by  his  own  favorite  method  of 
symbolism.  The  answer  given  by  Jesus  to  the  scribes'  de- 
mand for  a  sign  of  his  authority  was  a  reference  to  his  own 
resurrection  in  three  days,^  contained  in  the  saying  alluded 

1  The  so-called  Segan.  See  Acts  4:  i,  and  Schiirer,  Jewish  People,  etc., 
§  24,  z  (Second  D:v.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  257  f.,  Engl.). 

2  The  basis  of  Jn.  2:  13-22  seems  to  be  more  nearly  Matthiuan  than 
Markan. 

3  Cf.  Mt.  12:  40.    The  demand  of  "the  scribes"  for  "a  sign  from  heaven" 


396  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

to  by  Mark:  "Destroy  this  temple  and  in  three  days  I  will 
build  it  again."  He  was  speaking  symbolically,  says  the 
evangelist,  "of  the  temple  of  his  body."  But  not  the  words 
of  Jesus  only  must  convey  a  double  sense;  "the  Jews"  also, 
like  Caiaphas  in  11:49-51  must,  it  would  appear,  uncon- 
sciously "prophesy."    They  do  so  by  declaring, 

"  Forty  and  six  years  has  this  temple  been  in  building  (wKo8o[xrjdr]), 
and  wilt  thou  raise  it  up  in  three  days?" 

Here  the  point  of  departure,  as  all  admit,  is  the  date  of 
Herod's  great  undertaking  to  rebuild  the  temple,  whose 
date  is  carefully  fixed  by  Josephus  in  connection  with  other 
authorities  in  20-19  ^-  C-,^  so  that  any  Christian  Jew  who 
reckoned  from  this  epoch  of  the  temple  could  not  fail  to 
notice  that  the  received  date  for  the  crucifixion  (29  a.  d.) 
fell  at  exactly  one  jubilee  (7  x  7)  of  years  from  the  founding 
of  the  temple.  Thus,  barring  the  isolated  statement  of  Luke 
that  Jesus  at  his  baptism  was  "about  30  years  old"  the 
symbolism  by  which  the  resurrection  of  Jesus'  body  in  three 
days  was  brought  into  equivalence  with  the  saying  "Destroy 
this  temple  and  in  three  days  I  will  raise  it  up"  would  easily 
be  extended  into  a  correspondence  between  the  founding  of 
the  temple  and  the  incarnation.  Now  in  point  of  fact  we  not 
only  find  that  the  saying  "Forty  and  six  years  has  this 
temple  been  in  building"  was  understood  to  symbolize  the 
years  of  Jesus'  life,"  but  we  can  trace  this  reckoning  by 

in  Jn.  6:  30  ff.  seems  to  be  the  original  Johannine  parallel.  This  also  is 
answered  by  a  reference  to  the  Resurrection.  But  there  is  duplication  al- 
ready in  the  Synoptics. 

1  War,  I,  xxi,  i;  Ant.  XV,  xi,  i,  on  which  cf.  Schiirer,  H.  J.  P.  §  15,  notes 
12  and  72  (Engl.  I,  i,  pp.  410  and  438).  See  also  Turner,  Hastings'  Bible 
Diet.  I,  s.  V.  "Chronology,"  pp.  405  f. 

2  Augustine  (de  Doctr.  Chr.  II,  xxviii)  refers  to  certain  errorists  (perhaps 
successors  of  Gains  and  the  Alogi)  who  maintained  that  Jesus  attained  an 
age  of  nearly  50  years  on  the  ground  not  of  Jn.  8:  57  only,  but  Jn.  2:  20  also. 
This  view  is  taken  by  the  author  of  the  treatise  de  montibtis  Sina  et  Sion,  iv 
(in  the  works  of  Cyprian,  Hartel,  III,  108).    Augustine  himself,  however, 


TOPOGRAPHY  AND  CHRONOLOGY         397 

jubilees  of  years  to  its  fuller  form  in  a  fragment  of  the  Apoca- 
lypse of  Thomas,  which  forecasts  "nine  jubilees"  (450  years) 
from  the  Ascension  to  the  Second  Coming,  As  the  Nativity 
was  probably  dated  by  this  apocalyptist  like  others  of  his 
class  in  anno  mundi  5500  ^  and  the  duration  of  the  world  at 
6,000  years,  in  accordance  with  the  stereotyped  principle  of 
the  hexaemeron  (6  days  of  creation  each  =1,000  years,  the 
sabbath  =  the  millennium),  the  jjeriod  of  the  incarnation  will 
certainly  have  been  reckoned  at  one  full  jubilee  (50  years), 
making  up  the  total  of  ten  jubilees  (500  years)  for  the  Chris- 
tian dispensation.'  We  may  therefore  reasonably  infer  that 
the  synchronism  with  the  temple  in  Jn.  2:  13  ff.  represents 
this  type  of  reckoning  by  jubilees,  the  author  counting  that 
at  this  passover  Jesus  (coincidently  with  the  temple)  was 
beginning  his  47th  year,  at  the  unnamed  feast  of  5:  i,  which 
the  fathers,  beginning  with  Irenasus,  understand  to  be  a 
passover,^  was  beginning  his  48th,  at  the  passover  of  6:  4  his 
49th,  and  at  the  passover  of  the  crucifixion  (12:  i  ff.)  his 
50th,  the  jubilee  year  being  that  of  his  "glorification."  This 
reckoning,  though  it  may  exaggerate  the  impHcation  of 
Jn.  8:  57  is  at  least  in  harmony  with  it,  a  statement  which 
for  all  the  contortions  of  "harmonistic"  exegesis  cannot  be 
made  in  favor  of  the  Lukan. 

The  reckoning  of  Jesus'  life  at  a  jubilee  of  years  can  be 

attriljutes  an  allegorical  significance  to  the  46  years  in  relation  to  the  body 
of  Jesus  {de  Trin.  IV,  v). 

1  E.  g.,  .A.nnianus,  a  chronographer  of  about  412  A.  D.,  dates  the  nativity 
December  25  anno  mundi  5501.  The  conception  (Lk.  1:31)  took  place  as 
the  last  day  of  the  year  5500  was  passing  into  the  first  of  5501.  Annianus  is 
one  of  those  who  show  dependence  on  the  49  years'  duration  of  Jesus'  life 
probably  given  currency  by  Hippolytus  in  203-205  A.  d. 

2  See  Frick  in  Zts.J.  nil.  Wiss.,  1908,  2,  p.  172. 

3  Incorrectly  so.  The  subject  of  the  dialogue — Christ's  authority  vs.  the 
law  of  Moses — shows  that  Pentecost,  the  Feast  of  the  Giving  of  the  Law, 
was  originally  intended.  This  is  a  further  item  of  the  manifold  evidence 
that  Jn.  2:  13  ff.  is  an  editorial  addition. 


398  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

traced  much  further  back  than  the  Apocalypse  of  Thomas, 
and  to  no  less  an  authority  than  Hippolytus  himself,  if  we 
may  trust  the  scholarly  reasoning  of  Dom  Chapman/  in  his 
Defence  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  and  Apocalypse,  which  Chap- 
man gives  new  reason  for  dating  in  203-205  a.  d.  Un- 
fortunately for  inferences  'regarding  the  currency  of  this 
"jubilee"  dating  at  an  earlier  time,  Chapman  gives  very 
cogent  reasons  for  thinking  Hippolytus'  results,  a  period  of 
49  years  for  the  duration  of  Jesus'  life  and  of  twelve  years 
for  the  ministry,  to  have  been  purely  fortuitous,  a  mere  result 
of  dependence  on  the  grossly  careless  statements  of  Ter- 
tullian  in  combination  with  the  consular  lists.  Yet  this 
49-year  duration  of  Jesus'  Ufe  coincides  exactly  with  the 
data  of  an  ancient  fragment,  whose  contents  purport  (justly, 
so  far  as  we  can  judge)  to  be  from  the  "own  hand  "  of  "Alex- 
ander, bishop  of  Jerusalem."  This  Alexander,  who  had 
previously  held  a  bishopric  in  Cappadocia,  was  for  several 
years  associated  in  the  episcopate  of  Jerusalem  with  Nar- 
cissus, under  whom  the  great  council  was  held  in  Jerusalem 
(ca.  198  A.  D.)  which  settled  for  the  time  being  the  con- 
troversy about  the  passover,  its  dates,  relation  to  gospel 
story  and  obsen-ance.  Alexander,  fragments  of  whose  letters 
are  preserved  by  Eusebius,  was  a  friend  and  host  of  Origen, 
formed  a  celebrated  library,  interested  himself  in  the  paschal 
controversy  and  its  connected  questions  of  chronology  and 
the  "disagreement  of  the  Gospels,"  and  could  scarcely  fail 
to  know  the  earlier  chronological  work  of  Hippolytus  un- 
dertaken in  the  "Defence  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  and  the 
Apocalypse  of  John."  ^     But  the  fragment,  an  extract  from 

1  Journ.  of  Theol.  Studies,  VIII  (1906-07),  pp.  590-606.  See  also  his 
further  article  connecting  the  fragment  from  Victorinus  with  Papias.  Ihid. 
IX  (1907-08),  pp.  42-61. 

2Epiphanius  in  his  famous  chapter  against  the  Alogi  {Haer.  LI),  now 
known  to  be  based  on  the  work  of  Hippolytus,  avowedly  introduces  his  list 
of  consulships  from  the  thirteenth  to  the  forty-second  year  of  Augustus  to 


TOPOGRAPHY  AND  CHRONOLOGY         399 

the  Commentaries  of  Victorinus  (ob.  304  a.  d.)  extant  in 
several  forms,'  states  expressly  that  its  contents  were  derived 
by  Alexander  from  "apostolic  autographs"  (de  exemplaribus 
apostolorum)  and  were  found  by  Victorinus  "among  the 
parchments  of  Alexander."  Its  distinctive  feature  is  an  at- 
tempt to  date  the  birth,  baptism,  and  crucifixion  of  Jesus  in 
absolute  terms  of  the  Juhan  calendar,  obviously  for  ritual 
purposes  and  in  a  Quartodeciman  interest.  /.  c,  the  Passion 
and  Resurrection  are  fixed  for  annual  observance  on  the 
23d  and  25th  of  March  ("X"  and  "VIII  Kal.  April.")  a 
practice  current  so  far  as  we  knqw  nowhere  but  ///  Cap  pa- 
doc  ia.^  This  certainly  would  seem  to  corroborate  very 
strongly  the  claim  of  the  chronology  to  emanate  from  Alexan- 
der, a  Cappadocian  and  a  writer  of  authority  on  paschal 
questions.  Chapman's  reasoning,  on  the  other  hand,  is  very 
convincing  for  regarding  the  consular  dates  (Nativity: 
Sulpicio  Camerino  et  Poppajo  Sabino  Coss.  =  9  a.  d.  ;  Cruci- 
fixion: Nerone  III  et  Valerio  Messala  Coss.  =  58  a.  d.) 
which  also  figure  in  the  fragment,  as  resting  on  mere  blunders 
of  Hippolytus,  Alexander's  contemporary.  They  seem  to  be 
due  to  an  attempt  to  locate  the  ordinary  datings  (XLII  Aug. 
and  XVll  Tiber.)  in  the  consular  Hsts,  wherein  Hippolytus 
was  misled  by  the  previous  misstatements  of  Tertullian.  If, 
then,  we  are  not  to  reject  as  pure  falsification  the  statement 
about  Alexander's  dependence  on  apostoKc  documents 
(transcripsit  manu  sua  de  exemplaribus  apostolorum)  we 
must   limit  his  dependence  on  Hippolytus  to   the  Roman 

refute  "those  who  think  there  is  disagreement  in  the  number  of  years  set 
forth  by  the  evangelists." 

1  See  Dobschiitz  in  Texte  u.  Unt.  XI,  i,  pp.  136  f.,  and  J.  Chajjman  in 
Journ.  of  Theol.  Studies,  VIII  (1906-07),  pp.  590-606. 

2  For  some  reason  Harnack,  in  discussing  the  fragment  in  his  Gesch.  d. 
altchr.  Lit.,  Bd.  II,  8,  p.  506,  declares  this  effort  to  fix  the  observance  of  tiie 
Resurrection  on  March  25,  without  regard  to  the  day  of  the  week,  an  un- 
mistakably Quartodeciman  trait,  to  "point  to  C}aui"  (!). 


400  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

consulships.  We  have,  in  fact,  every  reason  to  believe  that 
Alexander  regarded  himself  as  possessing  such  "apostolic 
documents,"  because  the  great  synod  held  under  his  prede- 
cessor and  colleague  Narcissus,  and  held  for  the  very  pur- 
pose of  deciding  these  questions,  had  recorded  its  finding 
as  made  on  the  basis  of 

**the  tradition  concerning  the  passover  which  had  come  to  them 
in  succession  from  the  apostles."  ^ 

The  nucleus  of  the  library  formed  at  Jerusalem  by  Alexander 
will  at  least  have  contained,  if  it  did  not  consist  of,  the  docu- 
ments of  this  synod.  Corssen,^  and  Chapman  ^  are  indeed 
both  convinced  that  Alexander's  "apostohc"  authority  was 
Papias,  and  as  respects  Victorinus,  to  whom  we  owe  the 
extract,  in  his  Commentary  on  Revelation,  dependence  on 
Papias  for  chiKastic  reckonings  is  highly  probable.  But  in 
all  the  voluminous  literature  of  the  paschal  controversy  none 
dreams  of  citing  Papias  as  an  authority  for  these  dates,  which 
could  hardly  be  the  case  if  he  afforded  such  chronographic 
material.  We  must  think  rather  of  the  Acts  of  Pilate,  already 
known  in  some  form  to  Justin  Martyr  (153  a.  d.)  and  ac- 
cepted by  him  as  authentic,  with  its  connected  hterature,^ 
one  of  whose  chief  aims  was  the  determination  of  the  exact 
date  of  the  Crucifixion.^    Moreover,  if  we  are  not  to  ignore 

1  Eusebius,  H.  E.  V,  xxv. 

2Zts./.  ntl.  Wiss.  II  (1901),  pp.  202-227  s-iid  289-299. 

^  Journ  of  Theol.  Studies,  IX  (1907-08),  pp.  42-61. 

4  E.  g.,  the  Gospel  of  Nicodemus.  Epiphanius  {Haer.  L,  i)  reports  that  the 
Cappadocian  Quartodecimans  who  kept  the  anniversary  of  the  Lord's  Pas- 
sion "on  the  eighth  day  before  the  Kalends  of  April"  (March  25),  alleged  in 
support  of  the  practice  the  finding  of  this  "exact  date  in  the  Acts  of  Pilate." 

s  The  appearance  of  this  effort  at  an  exact  chronology  of  the  evangelic 
tradition  coincides  remarkably  with  two  events  each  of  which  would  naturally 
give  rise  to  it:  (i)  The  Egyptian  renaissance  of  chronography  springing  from 
the  completion  of  the  great  cycle  of  Sirius  in  140  a.  d.;  (2)  the  first  outbreak 
of  the  Quartodeciman  controversy  signalized  by  the  visit  of  Polycarp  to 
Anicetus  in  154  A.  D. 


TOPOGRAPHY  AND  CHRONOLOGY         401 

the  fact  that  one  of  the  burning  questions  the  Jerusalem 
synod  had  been  called  to  face  was  the  alleged  "disagreement 
between  the  Gosjjels"  in  res])cct  to  their  chronology,  we  must 
believe  that  Alexander  had  access  to  "apostolic"  deliver- 
ances on  this  particular  feature  of  the  controversy. 

Now  the  Alexander  fragment  gives  as  its  year  dates  (Na- 
tivity, 9  A.  D,;  Baptism,  46  A.  d.;  Crucifixion,  58  a.  d.)  a 
duration  of  12  years  for  the  ministry  and  49  years  for  Jesus' 
life,  two  periods  which  coincide  with  tradition  as  otherwise 
known, ^  and  which  im])ro\-e  upon  Irenicus'  attempt  to  main- 
tain an  age  of  "nearly  fifty  years"  for  the  life  of  Jesus  on  the 
basis  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  while  at  the  same  time  holding 
fast  to  the  Lukan  age  of  "about  30  years  when  he  began  (to 
teach)."  Chapman's  results,  however,  go  to  show  that  these 
periods  of  12  and  49  years  for  Jesus'  ministry  and  life  are 
purely  accidental!  If  it  is  true  that  Hippolytus,  the  disciple 
and  echo  of  Ireneeus,-  writing  with  the  special  object  of 
refuting 

"those  who  think  there  is  disagreement  in  the  number  of  years 
set  forth  by  the  evangelists" 

was  quite  unconscious  when  he  transcribed  his  consular 
dates  that  he  was  bringing  out  a  duration  of  49  years  for  the 
life  of  Jesus  and  of  12  years  for  the  ministry,  then  we  have 
little  or  no  evidence  to  carry  back  the  "jubilee"  theory  be- 
yond 203  A.  D.  We  shall  also  be  obliged  to  regard  everything 
in  the  Alexander  fragment  as  of  the  newest  of  the  new  at  the 
time  of  writing,  instead  of  "apostoHc"  in  derivation,  save 

1  See  above  on  the  "jubilee"  chronology  of  Jesus'  life.  The  twelve-year 
period  for  the  ministry  corresponds  with  that  adopted  in  many  early  writ- 
ings for  his  association  with  the  twelve  apostles  (inclusive  of  the  period  after 
the  Resurrection),  e.  g.,  the  Kerygma  Petri  (140  A.  D.),  Apollonius  (Eusebius, 
H.  E.  \\  xviii,  14),  Acta  Petri  c.  Simone,  V,  Pistis  Sophia,  and  Papyrus 
Bruce. 

2  For  Irena^us'  method  of  harmonization  (20  years!  for  the  ministry, 
nearly  50  for  the  life),  see  below. 

Fourth  Gospel — 26 


402  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

the  single  feature  of  the  dating  of  ecclesiastical  anniversaries 
by  days  of  the  Julian  calendar  (December  25,  March  25, 
etc.),  which,  as  we  have  seen,  Alexander  is  most  likely  to 
have  brought  with  him  from  Cappadocia.  As  the  matter 
stands  we  can  only  acknowledge  a  non  liquet.  The  appear- 
ance of  a  relation  in  Jn.  2 :  20  to  the  "jubilee  "  chronology  may 
be  merely  fortuitous  and  deceptive. 

But  is  it  admissible  to  suppose  that  the  date  of  Jesus' 
birth  could  be  reckoned  so  much  earlier  than  Luke  as  Jn. 
2:  20  and  8:  57  imply  at  the  early  date  to  which  these  pas- 
sages must  be  assigned?  Is  not  the  clause  Lk.  3:  23  "And 
Jesus  when  he  began  (his  ministry)  was  about  thirty  years 
of  age,"  however  casual  and  isolated,  a  fatal  barrier  to  the 
supposition  ? 

By  strict  appHcation  of  the  principles  of  historical  criticism 
the  statement  of  Lk.  3 :  23  has  next  to  no  value  whatever, 
being  opposed  not  only  by  Jn.  8:  57,  which  Irenaeus  justly 
declared  absurd  when  spoken  of  a  man  "about  thirty  years 
of  age,"  but  by  the  first  evangehst  also,  who  dates  the  birth 
of  Jesus  not  two  merely  but  an  indefinite  period  of  years  be- 
fore the  death  of  Herod  in  4  b.  c.  It  is  opposed  further  by 
Luke's  own  sources,  which  in  two  instances  imply  for  Jesus 
an  age  of  some  jorty  years  "when  he  began";  and  finally  it  is 
opposed  by  that  extremely  ancient  tradition  of  the  "Elders 
and  witnesses"  at  Jerusalem  borrowed  by  Irenajus  from 
Papias  and  adapted  to  his  defense  of  the  Johannine  chro- 
nology, which  moderns  have  somewhat  superciliously  treated 
as  merely  one  of  Papias'  "absurdities."  ^    In  support  of  the 

1  Even  Corssen  ("Warum  ist  das  vierte  Evangelium  fur  ein  Werk  des 
Apostles  Johannes  erklart  worden?"  Zts.  f.  ntl.  Wiss.  II  (1901),  pp.  202- 
227,  and  "Die  Tochter  des  Philippus,"  ibid.,  pp.  289-299,  does  injustice  to 
Papias.  He  attributes  to  him  the  entire  substance  of  the  chronographic 
fragment  of  Alexander  including  the  dates  by  consulships!  In  reality  Papias 
may  not  even  have  subscribed  to  the  jubilee  theory  of  the  duration  of  Jesus' 
life.     The  tradition  he  reported  was  a  TrapdSotrts  'luidvvov  (jov  irpea-jBvr^pov) 


TOPOGRAPHY  AND  CHRONOLOGY        403 

statement  no  witnesses  appear  save  the  later  and  dependent 
chronographers,  quick,  to  seize  upon  a  positive  and  definite 
date  like  this  "thirty  years"  of  Jesus'  age,  and,  in  the  case 
of  Basilidean  and  Wilentinian  "Zahlensymbolik"  to  turn  it 
to  account  in  allegory.  In  reality  the  30-ycar  datum  is  mani- 
festly no  more  than  a  necessary  inference  from  Luke's  own 
explanation  of  the  occurrence  of  the  Nativity  at  Bethlehem 
instead  of  Nazareth.  Prophecy  (Mic.  5:2),  and  Jewish 
legend  in  the  Mattha^an  form,  required  it  to  occur  in  Bethle- 
hem, though  Markan  narrative  had  already  established  Naza- 
reth as  Jesus'  TraTpk.  Luke's  solution  of  the  difficulty  is 
the  famous  census  referred  to  both  by  Mark  (Mk.  12:  14) 
and  by  the  speech  of  Gamahel  (Acts  5:  37).  Marking  as  it 
did  the  downfall  of  Juda^an  independence  the  Census  of 
Quirinius,  with  its  accompanying  insurrection  under  Judas 
of  Gamala,  was  an  epoch-making  event.  It  was  most  natural 
for  Luke  to  fmd  in  it  the  solution  of  his  difficulty,  and  at  the 
same  time  a  dating  for  the  Nativity.  Josephus,  it  is  true,  in 
a  portion  of  his  narrative  conspicuous  for  its  lack  of  good 
authority  identifies  the  insurrection  of  the  Galileans  under 
Judas,  suppressed  by  Quirinius,  with  the  disturbances  in 
Judcea  occasioned  by  the  deposition  of  Archelaus  in  6  a.  d. 
On  several  accounts,  mainly  the  identity  of  the  chief  actors 
in  the  scene,  Judas  of  Gamala  with  his  Galilean  following, 
and  Quirinius,  who  is  known  to  have  been  "governor  of 
Syria"  in  the  period  immediately  after  the  death  of  Herod 
(3-2  B.  c.)  but  not  at  any  other  time  before  or  after,  we  are 
disposed  to  agree  with  Spitta  ^  in  preferring  the  chronology 

that  Jesus  had  attained  the  a'tas  magistri  of  40  years  when  he  began  to 
teach.  The  context  of  Irena.'us  and  his  awkward  insertion  of  "et  quinqua- 
gesimo"  (see  below)  is  conclusive  evidence  of  this.  That  Papias  on  his  own 
account  speculated  with  ajjocalyptic  numbers  there  is  independent  evidence 
to  prove  (Anastasius  of  Sinai). 

^Zts.f.  nil.  Wiss.  Vn,  4  (1Q06).  "Chronologische  Notizcn  und  Ilymnen 
in  Lk.  I  und  2." 


404  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

of  Luke  to  that  of  Josephus  regarding  the  Census.  We  thus 
consider  the  Roman  intervention  implied  to  be  that  required 
by  the  execution  of  the  will  of  Herod.  The  disturbances, 
accordingly,  would  be  those  which  accompanied  the  assump- 
tion of  control  by  Rome  after  Herod's  death,  some  of  which 
are  also  referred  to  by  Josephus  himself.  Luke,  then,  will  be 
correct,  as  against  Josephus,  in  dating  the  Census  "about 
thirty  years"  earHer  than  "the  fifteenth  year  of  Tiberius" 
(28  A.  D.),  some  two  years  after  the  death  of  Herod  (spring 
of  4  B.  c). 

But  this  is  not  the  conception  of  Luke's  own  sources. 
These,  on  the  contrary,  look  to  a  dating  of  the  Nativity  more 
in  accordance  with  that  of  Matthew,  the  Fourth  Gospel  and 
the  7rapd8oai<i  'Icodvvov  of  Papias.  The  opening  clause  of  the 
narrative  "There  was  in  the  days  of  Herod  the  king"  (Lk. 
5:1)  is  certainly  intended  to  cover  at  least  the  events  con- 
cerning the  birth  of  John  and  of  Jesus,  interwoven  as  they 
are  in  the  ensuing  story  (i:  5-2:  39).  This  contemplates  a 
dating  for  the  Nativity  corresponding  to  Matthew's  some 
years  before  Herod's  death,  rather  than  to  Luke's.  So  also 
does  the  typology  of  Stephen's  Speech  (Acts  7:17-37), 
which  goes  even  beyond  Old  Testament  data  with  its  careful 
establishment  of  chronological  correspondences  between  the 
careers  of  Moses  and  of  Christ.  Thus  Moses,  who  is  here 
explicitly  made  the  prototype  of  Christ  (7:37),  is  declared, 
on  merely  midrashic  authority,  to  have  "attained  the  full  age 
of  forty  years"  (verse  23,  eTrXTjpovro  avrw  TeaaepaKQVTaeTr)<i 
')(p6vo<;)^  when  he  "visited  his  brethren,  the  children  of 
Israel"  and  was  rejected  by  them.  A  second  "forty  years" 
marks  his  second  and  successful  manifestation  (verse  30).^ 
But  we  must  bring  this  correspondence  with  Moses,  waiting 
till  he  had  "attained  the  full  age  of  forty  years"  before  un- 

1  Cf.  the  40-year  period  of  "signs  and  wonders"  in  verse  36,  and  the  40 
years  of  Israel's  obduracy  in  Heb.  3:  17. 


TOPOGRAPHY  AND  CHRONOLOGY         405 

dertaking  "  to  be  a  judge  and  ruler  over"  his  brethren,  into 
relation  with  a  third  witness  to  primitive  tradition,  in  order 
fully  to  appreciate  its  significance. 

Irenanis,  in  support  of  his  argument  against  those  who 
maintained  that  the  Fourth  Gospel  was  "at  variance  with 
the  others,"  resorts  to  the  strange  harmonislic  device  of  a 
duration  of  twenty  years  (!)  for  the  })ublic  ministry.  This 
is  to  reconcile  Lk.  3:23  and  Jn.  8:57,  the  former  stating 
that  "Jesus,  when  he  began,  was  about  30  years  old,"  the 
latter  implying,  as  Irenieus  correctly  observes,  that  he  was 
nearly  50  years  old  at  his  death. 

To  establish  this  (to  us)  astonishing  estimate  of  Jesus'  age 
Ircnaais  combines  a  certain  "tradition  of  the  (Jerusalem) 
Elders  "  borrowed  from  Papias  with  the  passage  from  Jn.  8:57 
as  follows: — 

"But  that  the  age  of  thirty  years  (Luke's  'beginning'  of  the 
ministry)  is  the  prime  of  a  young  man's  ability,  and  that  it  reaches 
even  to  the  fortieth  year,  everyone  will  allow;  but  after  the  fortieth 
and  fijtieth  year  it  begins  to  verge  towards  elder  age:  which  was 
our  Lord's  when  he  taught,  as  the  Gospel  (Jn.  8:  57)  and  all 
'the  Elders'  witness,  who  in  Asia  conferred  with  John  the  Lord's 
disciple,^  to  the  effect  that  John  had  delivered  these  things  unto 
them;  for  he  abode  with  them  until  the  times  of  Trajan."  ^ 

^^'e  are  not  so  much  concerned  with  Irencieus'  awkward  ad- 
aptation of  the  "tradition  {irapdSocn'i)  of  John"  (the  Elder 
of  Jerusalem,  ob.  117  a.  d.)  by  inserting  the  two  words 
italicized  (et  quinquagesimo),'"*  as  with  the  irapdSoai'i  of  John 

1  "In  Asia"  represents  Irenteus'  view;  "the  Lord's  disciple"  retlccls  the 
corruption  ol  tov  Kv  (for  tovtu)  fxaO-rjTai. 

-  Haer.  II,  xxii,  5. 

3  Corssen  {op.  cil.,  p.  220)  arbitrarily  cancels  the  words  on  the  ground 
that  they  make  no  sense,  and  Drummond  {Char,  and  Auth.,  p.  252),  ac- 
cepts this  violent  emencJation  as  having  "great  probability."  A  scribe 
wishing  to  make  the  correction  Corssen  supposes  woultl  not  have  added 
"et  quinquagesimo"  but  simply  changed  XI>  to  L  (/i  to  v). 


4o6  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

itself,  whose  object,  as  might  even  be  inferred  from  the 
Irenaean  context,^  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  harmonization 
of  the  Third  and  Fourth  Gospels,  but  only  with  synagogal 
aspersions  upon  Jesus.  The  question  apparently  in  debate 
is  whether  Jesus  when  he  began  to  teach  had  attained  "the 
age  which  befits  the  teacher."  ^  The  rabbis  treated  his 
teaching  as  an  impertinence,  because  Talmudic  law  requires 
that  a  man  shall  have  attained  the  full  age  of  forty  years 
before  assuming  this  function,^  "The  Elders"  replied  with 
the  assertion,  wholly  in  conformity  to  all  we  know  on  the 
subject,  with  the  sole  exception  of  Lk.  3:  23,  that  Jesus  had 
in  fact  fully  attained  this  age  when  he  began  to  teach. 

The  existence  of  debate  on  this  point  of  the  duration  of 
Jesus'  life  is  attested  by  the  Talmudic  sources  themselves, 
which  give  us  at  least  a  hint  of  the  rabbinic  counter  argu- 
ment, based  on  Ps.  90:10  and  55:23,  to  Christian  asser- 
tions. Herford,  who  rightly  perceives  that  "Balaam,"  the 
"bloody  and  deceitful  man"  who  seduced  Israel  to  idolatry, 
in  the  extract  is  a  mere  mask  for  Jesus,  gives  us  the  following 
colloquy  between  Rabbi  Hanina  of  Sepphoris  (ob.  232  a.  d.) 
and  a  Min  (Christian) : 

"A  certain  heretic  (min)  said  to  R.  Hanina,  'Have  you  ever 
heard  how  old  Balaam  was?'  He  replied,  'There  is  nothing 
written  about  it  (i.  e.,  in  Numbers).  But  from  what  is  written 
(in  Ps.  55:  23),  Men  0]  blood  and  deceit  shall  not  live  out  half  their 
days,  he  must  have  been  thirty-three  or  thirty-four  years  old. 
He  (the  heretic)  said,  "Thou  hast  answered  me  well.  I  have  seen 
the  chronicle  of  Balaam  (gospels?),  and  therein  is  written  '  Balaam 

1  The  preceding  paragraph  states  that  Jesus  "came  to  Jerusalem  (Jn.  2: 
13-22)  when  he  had  attained  the  full  age  of  a  teacher  (magistri),  so  that 
he  might  properly  be  listened  to  by  all  as  a  teacher." 

2  Irenseus,  ibid. 

^  Aboda  Zara,  Bab.  Talm.,  Frankfurt  ed.  (1715),  f.  19^.  Ad  quodnam 
vero  aetatis  momentum  expectandum  est  antequam  vir  doctus  alios  docere 
possit  ?     Res  p.  ad  exactos  annos  quadraginta.    Quoted  by  Schoettgen. 


TOPOGRAPHY  AND  CHRONOLOGY        407 

the  lame  ^  was  thirty-three  years  old  when  Pinhas  the  Robber  ^ 
killed  him.'"  3 

Hcrford  of  course  sees  the  relation  of  this  to  Lk.  3:  23,  but 
gives  no  reason  why  the  Jew  should  make  a  point  of  proving 
against  the  Christian  that  Jesus  at  his  death  was  still  less 
than  35  years  of  age.  The  Christian  combines  Lk.  3:23 
with  the  ministry  of  three  or  four  years  implied  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel;  but  the  rabbi  falls  back  upon  passages  whicli  are 
supj)osed  to  prove  "the  age  of  Balaam  when  he  died."  The 
anecdote  at  least  reflects  contemporary  discussion  in  the 
Church  on  the  chronology  of  Jesus'  life.  It  may  reflect  the 
older  debates  as  to  whether  Jesus,  when  he  began,  had  "at- 
tained the  age  of  a  teacher." 

It  appears,  then,  that  Lk.  3:  23,  so  far  from  representing 
the  older  Palestinian  tradition,  merely  correlates  the  primitive 
date  for  the  crucifixion  (Tiberii  XV-XVI  =  28-29  a.  d.)  with 
this  evangeUst's  own  synchronism  of  the  Nativity  with  the 
Census  of  Quirinius  (3-2  b.  c).  The  older  tradition,  as 
traceable  by  all  other  authorities,  merely  asserted  that  Jesus 
was  born  "in  the  days  of  Herod  the  King,"  and  that  he  had 
"fully  attained  the  age  which  befits  the  teacher  (40  years) 
when  he  began  to  teach." 

We  cannot  say  more  with  confidence  of  Jn.  8:  57,  "Thou 
art  not  yet  fifty  years  old"  than  that  it  represents  the  older 
Palestinian  view  rather  than  the  Lukan,  and  may  well  be 
regarded  for  this  reason,  if  for  no  other,  as  nearer  the  his- 
torical fact.  Even  here,  however,  it  does  not  appear  to  be  so 
much  historical  interest  which  occasions  the  correction,  as 
apologetic.  Jn.  2:  13  ff".,  on  the  other  hand,  may  perhaps 
imply  an  interpretation  of  Jn.  8:  57  in  the  exact  sense  that 

1  "Balaam"  according  to  R.  Johanan  was  lame  of  one  foot  and  blind  of 
one  eye.     Cf.  Mk.  9:  45,  46. 

"^Pinhas  Listaah  according  to  Perlcs  is  a  corru])lion  of  Pontius  Pilate. 
3  Christianity  in  Talmud,  etc.,  {).  72,  quoting  B.  Sauh.  io6b. 


4o8  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Jesus  on  the  latter  occasion  was  in  his  forty-ninth  year;  but 
we  have  repeatedly  seen  reason  for  considering  Jn.  2:  13-25 
the  insertion  of  a  later  hand.  Its  introduction  of  the  idea  of 
jubilees  of  years  and  correspondence  with  the  temple,  if  not 
illusive,  may  well  go  beyond  the  intention  of  the  original 
writer.  On  any  candid  interpretation,  however,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  the  Fourth  Gospel  repudiates  the  Lukan  date 
of  the  Nativity,  on  which  BasiHdes  had  perhaps  already 
built  up  his  fantastic  symbohsm  of  numbers,  and  reverts  to 
the  older  tradition  that  Jesus  was  born  "in  the  days  of 
Herod  the  king,"  and  "had  fully  attained  the  age  of  forty 
years  when  he  began  to  teach." 

So  far  as  concerns  the  duration  of  the  ministry  the  differ- 
ence of  the  Fourth  Gospel  with  its  predecessors  should  not 
be  exaggerated.  Mark  had  already  divided  the  ministry  into 
two  clearly  distinguished  parts,  of  which  the  former,  includ- 
ing the  Galilean  ministry,  closed  with  the  great  cycle  of  nar- 
ratives relating  to  the  Signs  of  the  Loaves  and  Confession  of 
Peter.  Indications  such  as  ancient  readers  were  as  quick  to 
notice  as  modern,  were  not  wanting  in  Mk.  2:  23  and  6:  39 
that  at  least  one  passover  season  had  been  spent  in  GaUlee. 
The  fourth  evangelist  simply  brings  this  passover  into  relation 
with  the  Sign  of  the  Loaves,  connecting  with  it,  for  reasons 
which  must  be  considered  in  connection  with  the  Quarto- 
deciman  practice  of  his  church,  his  exposition  of  the  Sacra- 
ment. This  called  for  a  ministry  of  two  years  instead  of  one, 
by  no  means  a  radical  correction  of  Synoptic  tendencies,  and 
one  which  besides  being  suggested,  as  we  have  seen,  by 
casual  indications  in  Mark,  may  well  be  in  consonance  with 
historical  fact.^ 

1  Turner  {op.  cit.,  pp.  406  and  409?;),  considers  "St.  Mark's  Gospel  .  .  . 
to  imply,  exactly  like  St.  John's,  a  two-year  Ministry."  All  the  fathers 
(save  Irenseus)  down  to  the  time  of  Eusebius  who  do  not  subscribe  to  the 
one-year  ministry,  interpret  "John"  as  requiring  a  ministry  of  two  years. 


TOPOGRAPHY  AND  CHRONOLOGY        409 

Besides  this  correction  of  the  duration  of  the  ministry,  so 
simply  clTected  by  merely  dropping  in  the  remark  of  6:4, 
our  evangelist  has  schematized  his  story  by  interjecting  into 
each  division  of  the  ministry  one  visit  of  Jesus  to  Jerusalem 
at  each  of  the  three  greater  "feasts  of  the  Jews,"  besides  one 
lesser  feast  (Dedication,  Jn.  10:  22)  and  a  second  visit  at 
Passover.  Of  these  the  first  visit  at  Passover  (2:  13-25)  and 
the  visit  at  the  minor  feast  of  Dedication  (10:  22-39)  have 
no  miracle,  and  remain  without  development  in  the  dialogue; 
they  are  at  least  of  subordinate  importance,  and  may  be 
reserved  for  futiue  discussion.^  The  visit  at  Pentecost 
(5:  I  ff.)  is  signahzed  by  the  healing  of  the  paralytic  at  the 
pool  of  Bethesda,  introducing  a  debate  with  "the  Jews"  re- 
garding Jesus'  own  authority  as  Son  of  man  and  Lord  of  the 
Sabbath  as  against  the  law  of  Moses.  It  corresponds,  as  we 
have  seen,  to  the  section  of  Mark  on  the  Growth  of  Opposi- 
tion (Mk.  2:  1-3:6),  which  modern  criticism  freely  admits 
to  be  un chronological  in  arrangement  and  setting.  This  is 
the  only  visit  of  the  Galilean  period.  The  Pera^an  period 
begins  with  a  visit  "in  secret"  at  "Tabernacles"  (7:  2-10). 
Its  miracle  is  the  healing  of  the  man  born  bUnd,  which  leads 
to  a  disputation  with  the  "bhnd"  Pharisees  including  their 
accusation  "He  hath  a  devil"  and  the  imputation  to  them 
on  Jesus'  part  of  the  unpardonable  sin  (9:  i-io:  21;  cj.  Mt. 
12 :  22-45).  ^^  the  earlier  portion  (7  :  14-8:  59)  it  is  occupied 
with  debates  which  connect  themselves  in  the  former  part 
with  the  rite  of  water-pouring  on  "the  last  day,  the  great  day 
of  the  feast"  (of  Tabernacles),  in  the  latter  (8:  12-59)  with 
the  illuminations  which  also  characterized  this  feast.  This 
visit  distinguishes  the  Pencan  period.  Passover,  the  feast  of 
Redemption  from  death,  has  its  twofold  miracle  and  its  in- 

1  The  visit  at  Passover  (2:  13  ff.),  as  previously  observed  on  several  oc- 
casions, can  hardly  be  reckoned  as  part  of  Uie  original  scheme.  On  the 
relation  of  Jn.  10:  22  to  its  context  see  Chapter  XVIII. 


4IO  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

terpretative  dialogue  in  Chapter  6.  The  Passover  visit  to 
Jerusalem  of  course  does  not  take  place  at  this  time,  but  is 
reserved  as  the  distinctive  feature  of  the  Judsean  period. 

The  assumption  that  Jesus  actually  visited  Jerusalem  at 
each  of  the  three  great  feasts  of  Pentecost,  Tabernacles  and 
Passover,  as  required  in  the  law  (Ex.  23:  14-17)  has  always 
been  easy  to  make  on  the  part  of  those  who  reason  a  priori 
as  to  what  "a  pious  Jew"  would  do.  Josephus  ^  very  pos- 
sibly employs  in  part  this  method  of  reasoning  when  he 
reckons  the  number  of  lambs  slain  for  persons  congregated 
in  and  about  the  little,  poorly  provisioned  city  at  256,500, 
implying  some  3,000,000  participants  in  the  feast,  without 
counting  the  disqualified.  In  reahty  the  number  who  seri- 
ously and  systematically  undertook  to  carry  out  this  (in 
20-30  A.  D.)  absolutely  impracticable  requirement  of  Mosa- 
ism  is  likely  to  be  better  represented  by  the  8,000  Pharisees 
whom  the  same  authority  counts  as  true  obsen^ers  of  the  law 
in  Israel.  Jesus'  visits  to  Jerusalem  will  have  been  as  rare 
as  those  of  his  humble  GaHlean  followers,  whose  poverty 
alone  would  preclude  any  attempt  to  live  up  to  the  letter  of 
the  requirement.  We  are  far  from  denying  all  relations  with 
Judaea  and  Peraea  to  the  entire  unknown  period  of  thirty 
or  forty  years  before  the  beginning  of  the  ministry.  To 
greater  or  less  extent  they  would  be  almost  sure  to  exist,  and 
may  account  for  Synoptic  evidences  of  acquaintances  of 
Jesus  whose  homes  are  in  the  south.  But  a  priori  reasoning 
from  the  probable  conduct  of  "a  pious  Jew"  to  that  of 
Jesus  is,  to  say  the  least,  unsafe.  Still  more  objectionable 
from  a  scientific  standpoint  are  attempts  to  find  "evidence" 
for  previous  visits  of  Jesus  to  Jerusalem  in  the  quotation 
from  the  "Wisdom  of  God"  in  Mt.  23:37  =  Lk.  13:34. 
Attempts  by  such  means  to  counteract  the  impression  con- 
veyed by  the  Synoptics  that  Jesus  at  the  final  passover  is 

1  War,  VI,  ix,  3. 


TOPOGRAPHY  AND  CHRONOLOGY         411 

visiting  the  temple  for  the  first  time  in  com])any  with  the 
disciples  (Mk.  11:  11;  Lk.  19:41)  simply  discredit  the  rea- 
soner.  In  reality  the  plaint  of  "the  Wisdom  of  God"  em- 
ploying the  imagery  of  Ps.  91:4  cannot  be  applied  to  the 
visits  of  a  being  in  human  form  without  grotesque  inappro- 
priateness.  Even  were  it  possible  to  imagine  Jesus  as  re- 
ferring to  visits  recently  made  by  him  as  opportunities  for 
gathering  Israel  "under  his  wings,"  the  reference  to  re- 
peated sendings  in  the  past  of  "prophets,  wise  men  and 
scribes"  could  only  apply  to  the  non-incarnate  "Wisdom  of 
God."  It  is  when  we  study  the  nature  of  the  dialogues  on 
the  Authority  of  the  Son  of  Man,  the  Bread  of  Life,  the  Liv- 
ing Water  and  Light  of  the  World  in  Jn.  5,  6  and  7  f.,  that 
we  perceive  the  real  "Johanninc"  relation  of  Jesus  to  the 
"feasts  of  the  Jews."  It  is  not  historical,  but  interpretative 
and  doctrinal.  We  cannot  draw  from  it  an  itinerary  of 
Jesus'  journeys  during  the  ministry;  but  we  may  obtain 
from  it,  //  we  will,  a  real  insight  into  the  mind  of  Christ, 
as  understood  and  interpreted  well-nigh  a  century  after,  on 
"the  feasts  of  the  Jews"  as  superseded  and  glorified  in  the 
ritual  of  the  Christian  Church. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

JOHANNINE    QUARTODECIMANISM 

According  to  Dr.  Turner  ^ 

"St.  John's  Gospel  distinguishes  itself  from  the  other  three  by 
its  careful  enumeration  of  six  notes  of  time,  five  of  them  Jewish 
festivals,  between  the  Baptism  and  the  Crucifixion;  and  these 
precise  and  detailed  recollections  of  an  eye-witness  must  be  al- 
lowed decisive  weight  against  the  apparently  divergent  testimony 
of  the  third  Synoptist,  not  to  say  that  their  very  precision  may 
have  consciously  aimed  at  a  silent  correction  of  impressions 
erroneously  derived  from  earlier  evangelical  narratives. 

We  have  seen  in  the  preceding  chapter  to  what  extent  the 
fourth  evangelist's  corrections  of  his  predecessor's  datings  of 
Jesus'  birth  and  death  deserve  the  name  of  "precise  and  de- 
tailed recollections  of  an  eye-witness."  To  some  extent  we 
have  been  enabled  to  form  a  judgment  also  concerning  this 
evangelist's  return  to  a  scheme  of  the  ministry  more  like  that 
of  Mark  in  its  two-year  duration.  His  adjustment  of  the 
story  to  "the  feasts  of  the  Jews"  has  appeared,  however,  to 
be  artificial. 

In  the  present  chapter  we  shall  discover  another  instance 
in  which  the  practice  and  belief  of  Asia  has  led  the  fourth 
evangelist  to  revert  from  the  conception  of  the  present  form 
of  Mark,  characteristic  of  Roman  ritual  since  the  earUest 
times  and  through  Mark  dominating  the  dependent  first  and 
third  Gospel,  toward  a  conception  certainly  antecedent,  be- 
cause implied  in  the  material  of  Mark  itself,  if  not  in  the 
independent  material  of  Luke  also.     The  practice  in  ques- 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  407a. 
412 


QUARTODECIMANISM  413 

tion  is  that,  the  defense  of  which  by  "tlie  churches  of  Asia" 
in  150-200  A.  D.  has  already  occupied  our  attention  on  ac- 
count of  its  relation  to  the  claims  advanced  in  behalf  of  the 
Gospel  during  this  period/  the  annual  commemoration  of 
the  death  and  resurrection  of  Jesus  coincidently  with  "the 
feast  of  the  Jews"  on  the  fourteenth  Nisan.  This  ])ractice 
has  been  designated  by  ecclesiastical  historians  Quarto- 
decimanism,  a  term  which  may  also  be  extended  to  cover 
the  divergent  ritual  of  certain  sects  in  Cappadocia  which 
early  substituted  the  Julian  solar  calendar  for  the  com- 
plicated lunar  system  of  Jewish  observance.  For  the  real 
dilTerences  of  the  controversy  lie  elsewhere.-  Throughout  its 
course  those  who  followed  the  Asiatic  practice  are  distin- 
guished from  followers  of  the  Roman  as  "observers"  vs. 
"non-observers"  (sc.  of  "the  Fast").^  Quartodecimans  ac- 
cused anti-Quartodecimans  of  "recklessness"  in  disregard- 
ing the  law  (Ex.  12:  1-28),'*  which  they  themselves  of  course 
interpreted  as  applying  to  the  Redemption  effected  by  the 
Passion  and  Resurrection.  Conversely,  anti-Quartodecimans 
accused  Quartodecimans  of  "  Judaizing,"  because, 

"at  the  season  in  which  the  Jews  keep  their  feast  of  unleavened 
bread,  then  they  themselves  (the  Quartodecimans)  are  eager  to 
hold  the  (Christian)  Passover."  ^ 

1  See  Chapter  X. 

2  Schiirer  (art.  "Passastreit,"  etc.,  in  Zts.  /.  d.  hisl.  T heoL,  iSjo,  p.  251) 
pronounces  the  declaration  of  Epiphanius  {Haer.  L.  i)  that  the  Cappado- 
cian  ol)servers  of  Easter  on  March  25th  were  Quartodecimans,  one  of  the 
all  too  frequent  blunders  and  misstatements  of  that  father.  His  reasoning, 
however,  is  based  on  the  fallacious  assumption  that  Quartodecimans  sought 
conformity  with  Jewish  practice  for  its  own  sake,  instead  of  for  the  sake  of 
fixing  the  true  date  of  the  Passion. 

3  See  Drummond,  op.  cit.  p.  479,  note  3  on  in^p-qcrav,  fXT]  rrjpovvTes. 

*  So,  e.  g.,  Blastus,  whose  schismatic  disturbance  of  the  peace  of  the 
churches  at  Rome  was  rebuked  by  Irena;us.  See  above,  p.  247  f.,  and  Ps.- 
Tert.,  Adi>.  Hner.  viii. 

5  Epiphanius,  Her.  LXX,  9. 


414  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

The  mere  substitution  of  the  Julian  calendar  for  that  of  the 
Synagogue — if  indeed  the  Jews  too  in  Cappadocia  had  not 
made  the  same  reform — did  not  affect  the  substance  of  the 
matter.  The  essential  difference  was  that  in  Asia,  where  the 
influences  of  Judaism  were  stronger,  the  Church  persisted  in 
obsendng  the  greatest  of  the  Jewish  feasts;  whereas  Rome 
and  the  West,  though  in  the  later  phases  of  the  controversy 
biblical  phraseology  naturally  attached  itself  to  the  Easter 
celebration,  took  the  more  radically  Pauline  ground  that  all 
the  feasts  and  sacred  seasons  of  Judaism  were  done  away  in 
Christ.^  Just  as  the  presence  and  claims  of  the  X  literature 
reflect  themselves  on  one  side  and  the  other  of  the  Mon- 
tanistic  controversy,  so  was  it  with  the  so-called  Paschal 
controversy  of  eariier  origin  and  longer  duration.  Only  in 
the  latter  we  have  the  additional  point  of  connection  that  sub- 
sequent to  the  appearance  of  the  Alogi  (ca.  i8o  A.  d.)  we 
observe  conflicting  methods  of  reconciling  the  Fourth  Gospel 
with  its  predecessors.  Gaius  of  Rome,  as  we  have  seen, 
called  attention  to  the  discrepancy  of  the  earlier  beginning 
of  the  ministry  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  than  in  the  Synoptics. 
The  charge  formed  part  of  his  attempt  to  disparage  the 
Gospel  of  his  opponents  the  "  Phrygians";  others  at  about  the 
same  period,  or  still  earlier,  had  obsers-ed  that  its  period  for 
the  ministry  requires  at  least  two  years  instead  of  the  Synoptic 
one-year  period ;  -  and  not  only  this  but  its  still  more  striking 
discrepancy  with  the  Synoptics  regarding  the  most  sacred 
season  of  Christian  observance,  the  "night  in  which  the 
Lord  Jesus  was  betrayed"  (I  Cor.  ii:  23),  and  the  ensuing 
day,  in  which  he  had  "given  his  Hfe  a  redemption  price 
{Xvrpov)  for  many." 

1  The  most  radical  representative  of  this  view  was  one  Aerius,  a  con- 
temporary of  Epiphanius,  who  wished  to  do  away  altogether  with  the  festival 
as  a  "clinging  to  Jewish  fables"  (see  Drummond's  citation,  op.  cit.,  p.  490). 

2  So  Melito  of  Sardis,  ca.  it-j  A.  D. 


QUARTODECIMANISM  415 

In  the  Fourth  Gospel,  notoriously,  the  Last  Supper  takes 
place  "before  the  passover''  (Jn.  13:  i);  the  purchases  "for 
the  feast"  are  then  still  to  be  made  (13:  29);  the  priests  on 
the  following  morning  have  not  yet  "eaten  the  passover" 
(18:  28);  the  great  event  of  this  day — Pilate's  condemnation 
of  Jesus  to  the  cross — is  clearly  and  definitely  dated  as  oc- 
curring at  noon  on  "the  Preparation  of  the  Passover"  {i.  e., 
the  day  on  which  the  preUminaries  of  the  feast,  such  as  put- 
ting away  the  leaven  and  slaughtering  the  lamb,  were  sol- 
emnly performed);  ^  finally  the  removal  of  the  bodies  from 
the  crosses  is  accounted  for  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  by  the  ad- 
ditional reason,  beyond  the  fact  specified  by  the  Synoptists 
of  the  morrow  being  a  sabbath,  that  "that  sabbath  was  a 
high  day"  (19:  31),  as  would  of  course  be  the  case  with  the 
first,  but  not  in  the  same  degree,  if  at  all,  of  the  second  day 
of  unleavened  bread  (Lev.  23:  7). 

Modern  attempts  at  harmonization  -  have  at  least  the 
merit  of  showing  how  each  side  in  the  second  century  con- 
troversy could  discover  a  mode  of  exegesis  by  which  the 
charge  of  "causing  the  Gospels  to  disagree"  could  be  leveled 
at  its  opponents.^    Modern  scholars  are  so  nearly  agreed  in 

1  It  is  true  that  the  same  term,  irapaffKeinj,  could  be  applied  to  the  sixth 
day  of  the  week  as  the  "preparation"  for  the  Sabbath.  But  the  fourth 
evangelist  is  not  counting  days  of  the  week,  nor  has  he  any  interest  in  de- 
termining on  what  day  of  the  week  the  crucifixion  took  place  except  that  it 
was  "three  days"  before  the  Resurrection  "on  the  first  day  of  the  week" 
(20:  i;  cf.  2:  19).  Previous  to  20:  i  he  reckons  by  days  "before  the  Pass- 
over" (12:  i).  The  preparation  day  of  the  Passover  if  it  could  ever  mean 
"the  Friday  of  passover  week,"  an  ambiguous  and  unexampjled  expression, 
could  not  have  this  meaning  after  the  count  had  been  begun  as  in  Jn.  12:  i. 

2  The  most  recent  which  has  come  to  hand  is  from  the  pen  of  Rev.  David 
Smith  in  The  Expository  Times  for  August,  1909  (xx,  11),  an  article  en- 
titled "The  Day  of  the  Crucifixion,"  aiming  to  show  that  "John"  agrees 
with  the  Synoptists.  Jn.  13:  i  is  a  separate  paragraph,  not  to  be  connected 
with  2  ff.;  13:  29  is  not  explained;  18:  28  refers  to  the  Hagiga  of  Lev.  23:  6  ff.; 
"the  sixth  hour"  (19:  14)  is  6  A.  m.  (how  about  Jn.  4:  6?),  etc. 

3  Principal  Drummond  is  convinced  that  both  sides  had  "some  way  of 


4i6  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

admitting  the  discrepancy,  whatever  their  explanation,  that 
we  may  consider  the  fact  already  established;  especially  as 
we  are  further  agreed  with  the  leading  "defenders"  in  op- 
position to  Schmiedel  and  other  opponents  of  the  Johannine 
authorship,  that  on  this  point  it  is  the  Synoptists  who  are  in 
error,  and  not  the  fourth  evangelist.  What  we  are  concerned 
to  show  is  not  the  mere  fact  of  error  on  one  side  or  the  other, 
but  the  cause  of  both  error  and  correction;  seeing  that  cor- 
rection may  be  due  either  to  the  superior  knowledge  of  an 
eye-witness,  or  to  the  better  tradition  prevalent  in  the  region 
whence  the  correcting  document  emanates.  We  believe  it  to 
be  capable  of  demonstration  that  a  true  tradition  had  per- 
petuated itself  among  the  churches  of  Asia  through  their 
distinctive  anniversary;  whereas  at  Rome  and  in  the  West 
generally  the  absence  of  a  strong  Jewish  element  had  per- 
mitted the  earher  tradition  to  become  obscured — not,  how- 
ever, to  the  extent  of  complete  obUteration. 

Principal  Drummond  has  greatly  contributed  to  the  clar- 
ification of  the  much  debated  question  in  his  admirable 
chapter  on  "The  Paschal  Controversy"  ^  reprinted  with 
slight  changes  from  the  American  Journal  oj  Theology  for 
July,  1897.  With  due  recognition  of  the  great  learning  and 
able  reasoning  of  this  discussion,  wherein  all  available  ma- 
terial seems  to  be  thoroughly,  and  for  the  most  part  judicially, 
considered,  we  must  venture  on  one  or  two  points  to  express 
a  certain  degree  of  dissent. 

To  Principal  Drummond  the  fundamental  character  of  the 

forcing  the  Gospels  to  speak  with  one  voice."  At  all  events  Quartodecimans 
accused  their  opponents  of  "making  the  Gospels  disagree."  See  above, 
p.  259.  How  their  opponents  reasoned  may  be  seen  by  the  example  of  Ire- 
naeus  adduced  by  Drummond  (p.  488),  from  which,  however,  we  cannot 
infer  what  was  "possible  for  Asiatics."  Epiphanius'  mode  of  reconciling 
the  Gospels  while  adopting  the  Johannine  date  is  still  more  curious  {op.cit., 
p.  496). 

1  Char,  and  Aitlh.,  Bk.  II,  §  3,  Chapter  VIII,  pp.  444-512. 


QUARTODECIMANISM  417 

Quartodeciman  observance  seems  so  distinctly  marked  as 
"a  festival,  a  time  of  rejoicing,"  that  it  seems  to  him  "need- 
less to  dwell  on  its  festive  character";  though  the  i)oint  is 
admittedly  of  importance.  P\)r  one  of  the  chief  ])oints  in 
dispute  is.  What  did  the  Quartodecimans  commemorate  in 
their  anniversary?  Was  it  the  Passion  and  Resurrection, 
the  former  of  which  would  according  to  the  Fourth  Gospel 
coincide  exactly  with  the  slaughtering  of  the  passover  lamb? 
Or  was  it  the  institution  of  the  Lord's  Sui)i)er?  In  the  for- 
mer case  the  Fourth  Gos])cl  would  be  the  great  bulwark  of 
Quartodecimanism.  Its  author  would  be  strongly  opposed 
to  the  Synoptic  representation,  like  the  other  Asian  writers 
on  the  question,  and  would  entirely  justify  their  confident 
appeals  to  it.  On  the  latter  supposition  the  Fourth  Gospel 
would  be  the  one  great  exception  to  Asian  sentiment,  its 
author  really  op])osing  those  who  made  their  appeal  to  it, 
and  treating  the  Last  Supper,  of  which  Quartodecimans  took 
such  extraordinary  account,  with  the  utmost  possible  neglect. 
Strange  as  it  may  seem,  some  of  the  foremost  scholars  have 
taken  this  view,  arguing  from  it  against  the  Johannine  au- 
thorship. The  contention  was  that  whereas  it  is  conceded 
that  John  the  Aj)ostle  will  have  been  Quartodeciman  in 
practice,  the  Fourth  Gospel  opposes  this;  inasmuch  as 
Quartodecimanism  was  a  commemoration  of  the  institution 
oj  the  Supper,  resting  on  the  Synoptic  dating  of  this  event. 

Nothing  could  be  clearer,  or  to  our  mind  more  conclusive, 
than  Principal  Drummond's  argument  in  opposition  to  this 
strange  idea  that  Quartodeciman  jjractice  was  founded  on 
the  Synoptic  story  and  chronology,  that  of  the  rest  of  the 
Church  on  the  Johannine.^     That  which  was  really  com- 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  4S6  fT.  Nevertheless  Drummond's  own  colleague  at  Oxford, 
an  authority  no  less  eminent  than  Bigg,  in  the  chapter  entitled  "The  Easter 
Controversy,"  in  his  Origins  of  Christianity  written  in  1908,  merely  restates 
the  antiquated  theory  of  Tayler,  showing  not  so  much  as  knowledge  of  the 

Fourth  Gospel — 27 


4i8  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

memorated  in  the  annual  observances  of  what  was  called 
"the  Christian  Passover"  was  always  and  only  the  Passion 
and  Resurrection.  These  were  considered  as  constituting  the 
greater  Redemption  {airoXvTpcoa-i'i),  Christ's  victory  through 
death  over  "him  that  had  the  power  of  death"  being  re- 
garded as  prefigured  by  the  "Redemption"  from  Egypt. 
This  turning  point  in  human  history  was  the  event  com- 
memorated in  the  Church's  anniversary,  whether  in  Asian 
or  Roman  usage;  whether  on  a  single  day,  as  we  are  informed 
was  the  general  practice  of  Quartodecimans,^  or  on  two  days 
corresponding  to  the  fourteenth  and  sixteenth  Nisan,  the 
day  of  the  slaying  of  the  lamb,  and  the  day  of  the  offering  of 
.the  sheaf  of  tirstfruits;  whether  on  the  same  day  as  "the 
people"  (Nisan  14),  or  on  the  Lord's  day  next  following,  or 
on  March  25th,  or  (as  in  later  Cappadocian  usage)  on  the 
23d  and  25th  of  March, ^  The  idea  of  an  annual  feast  to 
commemorate  the  institution  of  a  rite  is  entirely  modern  in 
conception,  and,  as  Drummond's  citations  abundantly  show, 
is  utterly  foreign  to  the  ancient  literature  of  the  subject. 
More  than  one  citation  could  be  made  to  the  same  effect 
as  that  of  Trecentius  in  the  third  century, 

"For  we  have  no  other  purpose  (in  endeavoring  to  establish 
the  true  date)  than  to  keep  the  memory  of  his  (Jesus')  passion, 
and  at  the  time  when  those  who  from  the  beginning  were  eye- 
witnesses have  handed  down."  ^ 


existence  of  Drummond's  complete  and  scholarly  refutation  published  in 
1897  and  republished  in  1904. 

1  "  One  of  the  objections  against  Quartodecimans  was  that  although  they 
followed  the  Jewish  reckoning,  they  did  not  carry  out  the  legal  prescriptions 
with  sufficient  care;  for  they  confined  their  celebration  to  a  single  day,  whereas 
they  ought  to  have  chosen  the  sheep  on  the  tenth  day,  and  so  fasted  for  five 
days."  Drummond,  op.  cil.,  p.  490,  citing  Epiphanius,  Haer.  L,  i,  3  and 
LXX,  12. 

2  So  the  fragment  of  Alexander  cited  in  Chapter  XV. 

3  A  p.  Drummond,  op.  cit.,  p.  477. 


QUARTODECIMANISM  419 

Dr.  J.  J.  Tayler  had  maintained,  however,  that  the  Quar- 
todecimans 

"kept  as  the  oldest  Christian  ])ascha  the  anniversary  of  the  fare- 
well supper  on  the  evening  of  the  fourtecnlli  of  Nisan,"  ^ 

arguing  that  the  festal  character  of  the  Christian  anniversary 
is  fatal  to  the  idea  that  it  commemorated  the  death  of  Christ, 
because 

"If  the  death-day  of  Christ  was  observed  on  the  fourteenth  of 
Nisan,  it  must  have  been  observed  as  a  fast  day,  and  would  there- 
fore have  been  in  harmony  with  the  prolonged  course  of  fasting 
which  preceded  the  anniversary  of  the  resurrection."  ^ 

The  true  answer  to  this  argument  is  that  the  Quarto- 
deciman  obser\-ance  did  have  just  this  character  of  a  com- 
memorative jast  day  and  is  particularly  so  designated  in  the 
oldest  and  most  authoritative  reference  that  we  possess: 

"For  the  controversy  is  not  only  concerning  the  dav,  but  also 
concerning  the  very  manner  of  the  jast.  For  some  think  that 
they  should  jast  one  day,  others  two,  yet  others  more."  ^ 

Nevertheless  this  is  only  partly  applicable  against  Drum- 
mond's  view  of  the  character  of  the  anniversary.  It  still 
remains  true  that  in  its  general  character  the  Christian  pass- 
over  was,  like  the  Jewish,  a  jcast;  only,  like  the  Mohammedan 
feast  at  the  termination  of  Ramadan,  and  many  similar 
Oriental  rites,  it  was  a  feast  terminating  a  fast."*  The  ele- 
ments of  the  observance  in  East  and  West  ahke  included  a 

1  Fourth  Gospel,  p.  1 14. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  121. 

3  Irena;us,  Letter  to  Victor,  ap.  Eusebius,  H.  E.  V,  xxiv,  12. 

*  This  breaking  of  the  fast,  usually  between  midnight  and  dawn  of  "the 
third  day,"  is  the  point  (usually  missed  by  moderns)  of  many  of  the  resurrec- 
tion stories,  in  which  Jesus  "eats  and  drinks  with"  the  disciples  [Acts  i:  4 
(a-vvaXi^d/juevos);  10:  41];  or  distributes  food  (Lk.  24:  42  f.;  Jn.  21:  12).  In 
Ev.  Hehr.  James  the  Lord's  brother  has  assumed  a  vow  of  fasting  since  the 
Supper.  Jesus  appears  to  him,  orders  "a  table  and  bread"  and  says,  "My 
brother,  eat  thy  bread;  for  the  Son  of  Man  is  risen  from  the  dead." 


420  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

fast,  of  longer  or  shorter  duration,  commemorating  the 
sufferings  of  Jesus'  martyrdom,  a  vigil  borrowed  from  the 
observances  of  passover  (Ex.  12:42)  and  in  Roman  practice 
made  to  correspond  with  the  night  of  the  Betrayal  (cj. 
Mk.  14:27-42) — and  "at  cock-crowing,"  or  "in  the  fourth 
watch  of  the  night"  a  breaking  of  fast  in  celebration  of  the 
bursting  of  the  "gates  of  Hades."  The  fundamental  dis- 
tinction of  Roman  usage  from  Asian  was  its  insistence  that 
the  sacred  mystery  of  the  Resurrection  must  not  be  cele- 
brated "ow  any  other  than  the  Lord's  day.'"  This  insistence 
on  accommodation  of  the  Jewish  annual  festival  of  passover 
to  the  Christian  weekly  observance  of  the  Lord's  day  was  the 
fundamental  cause  of  the  entire  disagreement.  As  Drum- 
mond  well  says: 

"  Regard  was  paid  to  three  measures  of  time,  the  solar  year, 
the  month  (lunar),  and  the  week.  The  first  decided  the  equinox, 
after  which  the  festival  must  be  held.  The  second  fixed  the 
fourteenth  day,  on  which  under  the  law  (Ex.  12:6),  the  sheep 
was  to  be  killed,  and  on  which  accordingly  Christ  was  crucified. 
But  a  week  was  observed  instead  of  a  single  day,  partly  because 
a  sheep  was  set  apart  from  the  tenth  day  to  the  fourteenth  (Ex. 
12:3),  and  partly  because  the  events  connected  with  the  true 
Paschal  Lamb  were  not  limited  to  a  single  day,  but  comprised 
the  resurrection  which  took  place  two  days  after  the  passion. 
The  fourteenth  day  therefore  was  comprised  within  the  week; 
but  the  breaking  of  the  fast,  and  the  celebration  of  the  festival, 
were  postponed  until  the  Lord's  Day.  If,  however,  the  fourteenth 
fell  on  a  Sunday,  the  feast  was  put  off  till  the  next  Sunday."  ^ 

As  a  description  of  the  practice  whereby  at  the  Council  of 
Nicaea  the  great  majority  of  the  churches  were  brought  into 
uniformity  of  observance  the  above  extract  seems  to  us  a 
clear  and  accurate  statement.  Its  weakness  Hes  in  the  at- 
tempt to  account  for  the  introduction  of  the  week  period  into 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  485. 


QUARTODECIAIANISM  421 

the  purely  lunar  clalings  of  the  loth,  14th,  and  iCth  Nisan. 
These  dales  mark  respectively  the  choosing  and  slaying  of 
the  paschal  lamb  and  the  offering  of  the  sheaf  of  firstfruits. 
They  correspond  to  the  anointing  of  Jesus  "six  days  before 
the  j^assover"  (Jn.  12:  i  fif.),  his  crucifixion,  and  his  mani- 
festation of  himself  to  Alary  "three"  days  after  it.  But 
this  cannot  account,  as  Drummond  holds,  for  the  hebdom- 
adal element.  It  is  not  even  true  that  Firstfruits  would  fall 
on  the  same  week-day  (whatever  that  day  might  be)  as  the 
choosing  of  the  Lamb;  for  Nisan  10 — Nisan  16  =  6  (not  7) 
days.  Moreover  (i)  the  correspondence  of  the  Anointing  of 
Jesus  in  Bethany  with  the  Choosing  of  the  Lamb  is  obtained 
by  the  fourth  evangehst  alone,  and  this  by  dint  of  one  of  the 
most  startling  of  his  "corrections  of  the  Synoptics";  yet  it  is 
just  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  that  the  days  of  the  week  are  least 
considered.  For  this  supposed  starting  point  "six  days 
before  the  j)assover,"  the  day  of  the  week  is  not  fixed  at  all. 
Only  a  roundabout  inference  from  Jn.  19:31  and  20:1 
enables  the  curious  reader  who  will  count  backward,  re- 
membering that  the  ancient  practice  is  to  count  both  termini 
of  intervals,  to  discover  that  in  the  year  in  question  Nisan  10, 
"six  days  before  the  passover"  (Nisan  15  =  first  of  Unleav- 
ened Bread)  would  have  been  a  Monday.  The  evangelist, 
however,  is  not  here  concerned  with  the  week-day  on  which 
Nisan  10  happened  to  fall  that  year.  He  wishes  only  to 
make  clear  that  the  anointing  of  Jesus,  because  (uncon- 
sciously) done  "against  the  day  of  his  burying"  corresponded 
with  the  choosing  of  the  lamb  for  the  sacrifice  of  the  Re- 
demption ordained  by  the  law  for  "the  tenth  day  of  the 
month"  (Ex.  12 :  3).  He  cannot,  then,  be  reckoning  here  l)y 
week-days.  Much  less  the  Synoi)tists,  who  make  the  period 
one  of  four  days  only. 

(2)  Strange  as  it  may  seem  at  first  sight,  there  was  at  finst 
no  uniformity  in  determining  the  interval  between   Jesus' 


422  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

death  and  his  resurrection.  It  was  not  even  in  strictness  his 
resurrection,  i.  e.,  his  return  to  earth  to  manifest  himself  to 
his  disciples,  which  was  primarily  celebrated  in  "the  Chris- 
tian passover."  The  return  jrom  the  under-world,  when 
celebrated  separately,  v/as  celebrated  on  the  day  of  First- 
fruits  (Nisan  i6),  the  "third  day  according  to  the  scriptures" 
of  I  Cor.  15:4;  for  it  is  the  imagery  of  the  new  sheaf  of  wheat 
restored  from  its  burial  under  the  soil  which  suggests  the 
whole  tenor  of  this  sublime  chapter  in  which  Paul  declares: 

"  Now  is  Christ  risen  from  the  dead,  and  (by  his  return  to  the 
world  of  the  living  as  first  of  a  great  harvest  of  souls  redeemed 
from  the  power  of  the  grave  and  gifted  with  the  body  of  incor- 
ruption)  become  the  Firstfruits  (awapx-q)  of  them  that  slept." 

Where  conformity  to  the  Mosaic  ritual  was  less  close  than 
among  the  Corinthians,  whom  Paul  is  constantly  reminding 
in  this  letter  of  the  ritual  of  passover  (I  Cor.  5 :  7,  8;  cj.  16:  8), 
Quartodecimans  would  observe  only  the  one  great  day  of 
passover,  the  feast  of  Unleavened  Bread,  introduced  by  its 
"night  of  vigil  unto  the  Lord,"  and  preceded  by  a  longer  or 
shorter  period  of  fasting  ^  in  commemoration  of  Jesus' 
suffering.  But  as  to  why  this  fasting  could  be  turned  into 
feasting  already  in  the  very  night  of  the  day  which  commem- 
orated Jesus'  death  without  waiting  for  the  ensuing  Lord's 
day,  or  even  for  the  ^' third  day"  (i.  e.,  Firstfruits  =  Nisan  16) 
we  need  not  be  in  the  dark.  The  famous  quotation  from 
Apollinaris  of  Hierapolis,  one  of  the  foremost  champions  of 
Quartodecimanism  and  bishop  of  one  of  its  greatest  strorg- 

1  Above,  p.  41Q,  note  4.  We  may  conjecture  from  Jn.  12:  i  that  in  Asia 
the  period  recognized  at  the  time  as  the  appropriate  one  was  "six  days" 
(i.  e.,  five  by  modern  count).  We  can  hardly  infer  from  Mk.  14:  i  S.  that 
the  period  in  Rome  was  then  of  "two  days,"  because  the  date  of  verse  i  was 
not  originally  intended  to  cover  verses  3-9.  See  below  and  Beginnings  of 
Gospel  Story,  ad  lac.  In  some  cases,  as  the  letter  of  Irenacus  informs  us,  it 
covered  but  40  hours,  /.  e.,  from  3-5  p.  m.  on  Nisan  14  to  "the  fourth  watch 
of  the  night"  of  Nisan  16. 


QUARTO  DECIMANISM  423 

holds,  leaves  no  room  for  question  on  this  point  to  minds 
awake  to  the  distinction  between  Christ's  victory  over  the 
powers  of  darkness  and  death,  and  his  subsequent  reaj)pear- 
ance  on  earth  to  report  the  triumph  to  his  downcast  followers. 

"The  fourteenth  (of  Nisan)  is  the  true  passover  of  the  Lord, 
the  great  sacrifice,  the  Servant  (Trais)  of  God  instead  of  the 
lamb,  he  who  was  Ijound  binding  the  'strong  man'  (Mt.  12:  29  = 
Lk.  11:21-22,  applied  In'  the  fathers  to  the  binding  of  Satan, 
who  'had  the  power  of  death'),  he  who  was  judged  becoming 
Judge  of  quick  and  dead,  he  who  was  deHvered  into  the  hands 
of  sinners  to  be  crucified,  he  who  was  Hfted  up  on  the  horns  of 
the  unicorn  (an  allusion  to  Ps.  22:  21,  supposed  to  refer  to  the 
transverse  beam  of  the  cross),  and  who  when  his  holy  side  had 
been  pierced  poured  forth  out  of  his  side  the  two  media  of  purifi- 
cation, water  .and  blood,  word  and  spirit,  he  who  was  buried  on 
the  day  of  the  passover,  the  stone  being  laid  upon  the  tomb."  ^ 

The  victory  which  this  ardent  Quartodeciman  and  lover  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel-  sees  commemorated  in  "the  true  pass- 
over  of  the  Lord"  is  one  accompHshed  "on  the  day  of  the 
passover,"  during  the  hours  while  Jesus'  body  lay  buried 
"the  stone  being  laid  upon  the  tomb."  It  was  on  the  fol- 
lowing day,  the  day  of  Firstfruits  (Nisan  16;  in  that  year 
a  Sunday)  that  he  came  forth  from  the  grave  to  announce 
his  victory,  ascend  to  the  Father,  and  returning,  "the  same 

1  A  p.  Charteris,  Canonicily,  p.  194. 

2  Drummond's  disproof  of  Schiirer's  view  that  Apollinaris  was  not  Quar- 
todeciman in  his  sympathies  {op.  cit.,  p.  507)  is  entirely  sound.  The  non- 
appearance of  Apollinaris  in  Polycrates'  list  need  not  be  due  to  his  sympathy 
with  Roman  practice  against  the  unanimous  conviction  of  Asia  (Euseb. 
H.  E.  V,  xxiii,  i)  on  the  main  question  of  the  monthly  vs.  the  weekly  date. 
It  is  far  more  probably  accounted  for  by  difference  on  some  minor  point  such 
as  the  Cappadocian  peculiarity  of  using  the  Julian  instead  of  the  Jewish 
calendar.  The  differences  of  Quartodecimans  among  themselves  on  this 
point,  or  on  methods  of  interpreting  the  Synoptics  in  harmony  with  John, 
may  also  account  for  the  "great  controversy  about  the  Passover  in  Laodicea" 
ca.  170  {H.  E.  1\,  xxvi,  3). 


424  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

(lay  at  evening  it  being  the  first  day  of  the  week,"  bestow 
u])on  his  assembled  discijjles  the  gift  of  the  Spirit,  brought 
with  him  from  the  Father.^ 

This  earlier  dating  of  the  victory  over  death  is  not  peculiar 
to  the  Fourth  Gospel.  Even  Ev.  Petri  makes  the  ascension 
take  place  from  the  cross  itself,  to  say  nothing  of  the  docetic 
Acts  oj  John  which  make  the  glorification  precede  the  Passion. 
I  Pt.  3:18-22;  4:6,  makes  the  separation  of  Jesus'  spirit 
from  his  body  on  the  cross  the  immediate  antecedent  of  his 
conc|uest  of  the  under-world ;  and  this  representation  is  itself 
only  a  development  of  Paul's  in  his  great  letters  to  the 
churches  of  Asia,  wherein  Christ's  triumph  "in  the  cross" 
over  "the  principalities  and  the  powers"  of  the  under-world 
(Col.  2:  13-15)  is  connected  with  the  triumphal  ode  of  the 
Redemption  from  Egypt  (Ps.  68:18;  cj.  Eph.  4:8-10). 
Even  the  vigil  of  Israel  at  Passover,  "having  their  loins  girt, 
their  feet  shod,  and  staff  in  hand  ready  to  go  forth"  (Ex.  12: 
II,  34,  39)  is  paralleled  in  Paul's  thought,  not  as  in  Mark  by 
the  vigil  of  Jesus  in  Gethsemane,  where  the  disciples  in  face 
of  approaching  trial  show  the  weakness  of  the  flesh,  but  by 
the  vigil  of  the  Church  awaiting  as  "prisoners  of  darkness"  ^ 
the  summons  of  its  Leader  to  an  eternal  redemption.  The 
enemy  is  "the  world-rulers  of  this  darkness,"  "the  spiritual 
hosts  of  wickedness,"  the  "Prince  of  the  power  of  the  air," 
whose  stronghold  of  death  and  the  grave  has  been  in\aded 
by  a  stronger  than  he,  delivering  his  "captivity."    The  wait- 

1  Jn.  20:  17-23.  The  Fourth  Gospel  like  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas  places 
the  ascension  on  the  same  day  as  the  Resurrection.  This  would  be  another 
"correction  of  Luke"  were  Acts  i:  3  ff.  justly  taken  to  place  the  ascension 
at  the  end  of  the  40-day  period  of  intercourse.  In  reality  Acts  means  the 
same  as  the  Fourth  Gospel  (see  Bacon,  "The  Ascension  in  the  Fourth  Gos- 
pel and  Acts,"  Expositor,  Mar.  1909).  The  ascension  in  Lk.  24:  44-51  = 
Acts  i:  4-12,  marks  the  beginning  of  the  40-day  period.  Pentecost  (origi- 
nally) marked  the  end. 

2  So  Wisd.  of  Sol.  17:  2  ff. 


QUARTODECIMANISM  425 

ing  Church  must  "stand  having  their  loins  girt  about  with 
truth  .  .  .  having  their  feet  shod  with  the  prcj)arcd- 
ness  [iroifiaaia)  of  the  glad  tidings  of  peace,"  ready  to  fol- 
low their  triumphant  Leader  to  an  eternal  Redemption.^ 

Because  it  commemorated  Christ's  victory  over  the  powers 
of  the  under-world,  "the  Christian  passover,"  independently 
of  whether  it  was  followed  or  not  l)y  a  further  festival  of 
Firstfruils  in  commemoration  of  his  return  to  the  earth,  took 
the  place  both  of  the  Jewish  feast  of  Redemption,  and  of  the 
many  chthonic  mysteries  and  cults  which  among  Asiatic 
Greeks  celebrated  the  vernal  equinox  as  the  season  of  the 
reav.-akening  of  life.  For  Quartodecimans  and  for  the  fourth 
evangelist  it  was  an  interesting  coincidence,  but  nothing  more, 
that  Firstfruits,  which  when  observed  at  all,  marked  the  close 
of  their  celebration,  had  fallen  in  that  first  year  on  a  "first 
day  of  the  week."  The  essential  dates  were  the  vernal  equi- 
nox, symbohc  to  all  races,  and  the  full  moon  of  Nisan,  of 
sui)reme  significance  to  the  Jews.  The  week-day  was  to 
their  mind  unimportant. - 


1  Origen  is  correct  in  connecling  Eph.  6:  10-17  with  Ex.  12:  11  fl.  The 
whole  epistle  is  full  of  passover  rejoicing,  in  which  the  Church's  redemption 
in  the  victory  of  Christ  from  the  "principalities  and  powers"  of  the  under- 
world takes  the  place  of  Israel's  from  Egypt.  See  especially  1:  14;  2:  5-7; 
3:  10;  4:  8-10;  6:  10-18.  The  passover  vigil  is  similarly  treated  in  I  Thess. 
5:  4-10;  cf.  in  Wisd.  of  Sol.  18:  15  f.,  the  description  of  the  Logos  of  God 
appearing  as  the  champion  of  Israel  to  deliver  them  out  of  the  house  of 
bondage.  In  Ev.  Petri,  g:  40,  this  description  is  applied  to  Christ  as  he 
issues  from  the  tomb  after  his  mission  to  the  under-world. 

2  On  this  question  of  what  was  celebrated  by  Quartodecimans  on  the  14th 
Nisan  we  find  ourselves  in  disagreement  with  Schiirer's  masterly  discussion 
{Zls.f.  d.  hist.  TheoL,  1870,  pp.  182-284).  According  to  Schiirer  (p.  208)  "It 
is  self-evident  that  the  14th  cannot  have  been  celebrated  as  the  anniversary 
of  the  resurrection."  The  assumption  is  that  the  victory  over  death  was 
associated  originally  with  the  third  day.  The  earliest  traces  of  the  resurrec- 
tion faith  indicate  the  contrary.  The  third  day  marked  the  Conqueror's  re- 
turn. The  statement  on  p.  260  is  more  correct.  Easter  v.as  the  anniversary 
of  the  Redemption  as  a  whole,  whcllior  in  East  or  West. 


426  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Now  if  even  Paul  so  greatly  appreciated  the  worth  of  a 
Christianized  celebration  of  Passover,  and  probably  Pente- 
cost as  well  (I  Cor.  i6:  8;  Acts  20:  16)  it  is  needless  to  point 
out  the  extreme  improbability  of  the  older  disciples  having 
ever  ceased  to  keep  these  feasts.  But  if  Quartodeciman 
practice  be  the  really  ancient  and  apostoUc  usage,  how  shall 
we  account  for  Roman  subordination  of  the  annual  and  lunar 
date  to  the  merely  hebdomadal  ?  Why  was  feeling  so  strong 
at  Rome  that  the  mystery  of  Redemption  from  the  grave 
should  be  celebrated  only  on  the  Lord's  day? — Partly,  no 
doubt,  because  of  an  occidental  obtuseness  to  the  distinction 
between  the  victory  itself  over  death,  and  the  announcement 
of  it  to  the  disciples  at  the  tomb  "on  the  third  day";  but 
more  especially  because  of  the  stronger  reaction  at  Rome 
against  the  ceremonial  of  Judaism.  A  separate  reading  of 
Mk.  2:  18-3:  6;  7:  1-23  and  10:  2-12  may  be  necessary  at 
this  point  for  those  who  question  whether  the  Roman  at- 
titude toward  Jewish  observances  is  really  of  the  radical  type 
corresponding  to  Gal.  4:  9-11;  Col.  2:  16;  Rom.  14:  5,  rather 
than  to  Paul's  milder  and  more  conservative  mood.  At  all 
events  indications  are  not  wanting  in  Romans  itself  of  a 
prevailing  disposition  at  Rome  to  override  the  "Jewish"  ob- 
servances of  the  "weak"  element.  We  may  illustrate  to 
ourselves  primitive  Roman  feeling  regarding  the  keeping  of 
passovers — even  Christianized  passovers — by  the  attitude  still 
maintained  in  conservative  churches  of  Puritan  origin  against 
the  observance  of  Easter  as  savoring  of  "popery."  The 
weekly  observance  of  the  Lord's  day,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
universal  and  unquestioned.  Its  distinctive  rite  was  the 
breaking  of  bread  in  memory  of  "the  Lord's  death,"  which 
from  the  earliest  times  had  followed  upon  the  Agape  (I  Cor. 
II :  20  ff.).  What  more  natural  than  that  this  rite  should  be 
considered  to  have  done  away  with  the  Jewish  feast  ?  What 
more  plausible  than  the  representation  that  Jesus  himself 


QUARTODECIiMANISM  427 

had  instituted  it  for  the  very  purpose  of  superseding  the  Pass- 
over on  occasion  of  his  last  observance  of  that  rite?  As  we 
understand  the  bearing  of  the  narrative  in  Mk.  14-16  the 
effort  is  apparent  throughout  to  make  it  appear  that  the  fare- 
well sup])cr  of  Jesus  with  the  Twelve  was  in  fact  the  passover 
meal  (though  the  reasons  are  exceedingly  strong  against  this 
having  been  the  case),  and  that  this  rite  should  no  more  be 
observed  iinlil  jul filled  in  tJic  kingdom  oj  God  (Mk.  14:25), 
the  new  ordinance  of  bread  and  the  cup  taking  its  place 
until  the  Coming.' 

Yet  the  older  view  (the  so-called  "Johannine"  which  is 
really  the  Pauline  and  apostoHc)  is  distinctly  traceable  be- 
neath the  surface  even  in  Mark.  The  purpose  of  Jesus'  death 
(Mk.  10:  45)  is  that  of  the  passover  lamb,  to  provide  "a  Re- 
demption for  many"  (XvTpov  avj\  iroWcov).  The  Anointing 
in  Bethany  (Mk.  14:3-9)  is  brought  into  a  relation  now 
unintelligible  with  the  conspiracy  against  Jesus'  life.  Why, 
unless  its  original  application  was  that  which  the  Fourth 
Gospel  with  its  new  dating  supplies?^  The  "two  days" 
of  Mk.  14:2  are  intended  to  show  why  the  betrayal  must 
take  place  on  the  night  immediately  following  the  conspiracy, 
lest  if  the  execution  take  place  "on  the  feast  day"  "there  be 
an  uproar  of  the  people," — and  yet  as  the  narrative  now 
stands  it  does  take  place  "on  the  feast  day."    At  the  supper 

^  C/.  Schiirer,  op.  cil.,  p.  192,  "We  see  then  that  according  to  ancient 
Christian  parlance  the  sacrificial  death  of  Christ  was  considered  to  be  the 
passover  offering  of  the  new  covenant  on  the  one  side;  but  on  the  other  the 
memorial  supper  was  also  considered  to  be  the  passover  feast  of  the  New 
Testament." 

2  The  whole  point  of  the  story  of  the  Anointing  lies  in  Jesus'  poetic  chang- 
ing of  its  intended  sense.  The  woman  wishes  to  anoint  Jesus  for  the  Davidic 
throne  as  Samuel  had  anointed  Saul  after  the  feast  at  his  house  (I  Sam. 
10:  i).  Jesus  accepts  the  tribute,  but  deprecates  the  sense  implied.  The 
anointing  will  prove  not  for  his  enthronement,  but  his  burial.  The  great 
stress  laid  upon  its  narration  (verse  9)  is  indicative  of  its  connection  with  the 
Easter  ritual;  cf.  Ex.  12:  26  f. 


428  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

there  is  no  trace  of  passover  ritual  or  surroundings  (save  the 
"hymn"  ^),  no  roasted  flesh,  no  ritual  five  cups,  no  cere- 
monial, no  abiding  in  the  house  till  the  morning.  All  is  what 
v^e  should  expect  if  the  meal  were  simply  the  Qiddush  of 
passover  and  not  the  Passover  itself.^ 

But  interpretation  of  the  Roman  Gospel,  its  transforma- 
tion of  the  older  form  of  the  tradition  of  Passion  and  Resur- 
rection, with  the  motives  thereof,  does  not  belong  to  our 
present  task.  On  these  points  we  must  refer  the  reader  to 
the  critical  discussion  of  Mark.'^  The  First  Epistle  of  Paul 
to  the  Corinthians,  written  from  Ephesus  itself,  out  of  the 
very  midst  of  the  Easter  celebrations  of  that  church,  or  im- 
mediately after  (I  Cor.  i6:  8),  remains  an  impassable  barrier 
to  all  attempts  to  make  out  the  ritual  implied  in  the  Ephesian 
Gospel  to  be  the  later  and  that  of  the  Roman  the  earlier. 
Paul  explicitly  declares  that  the  Christian  passover  is  the 
sacrifice  of  Christ's  body  for  us  (I  Cor.  5:7,  8),  and  im- 
plicitly that  the  Christian  Firstfruits  is  his  resurrection  "on 
the  third  day"  (15:4,  20  ff.);  our  "watch-night"  (Ex.  12:  42) 
is  an  expectation  of  his  return  in  triumph  to  liberate  us  from 
our  bondage  after  having  "spoiled"  the  powers  of  darkness.^ 


1  Part  of  the  Christian  ritual;  Eph.  5:  19;  cf.  Ep.  of  Pliny  to  Trajan. 

2  We  note  with  pleasure  that  both  Drummond  (p.  52,  note  i)  and  Sanday 
{Criticism,  p.  153)  speak  in  high  terms  of  the  "thoughtful  paper"  of  Rev. 
G.  H.  Box,  to  whom  credit  is  due  beyond  all  others  for  this  helpful  identifi- 
cation {Journ.  of  Theol.  Studies,  April,  1902). 

3  See  Beginnings  of  Gospel  Story,  pp.  192-235. 

4  The  "spoiling"  is  partly  an  element  of  the  Redemption  story  (Ex. 
12:  36;  cf.  Wisd.  of  Sol.  10:  20);  partly  a  midrashic  inference  from  Ps.  68: 
18  f.  (reading  npn  "distributed  spoil"  for  np?  "received  gifts";  cf.  Eph. 
4:  8-11  and  Col.  2:  15);  partly  an  interpretation  of  the  "spoiling"  of  the 
Strong  man  Armed  (Mt.  12:  29  =  Lk.  11:  21-23).  What  Quartodecimans 
made  of  this  appears  from  one  of  the  arguments  urged  by  Gains  against  the 
authenticity  of  Revelation,  answered  in  the  fifth  of  Hippolytus'  Heads 
against  Gains.  "The  heretic  Caius"  argues  against  the  binding  of  Satan 
alleged  in  Rev.  20:  2  f.  that  "Satan  is  already  bound,  according  to  what  is 


QUARTODEClAlANlSiM  429 

Certain  characteristic  tendencies  of  the  post-apostolic  age 
are  the  real  causes  of  the  strange  phenomena  wliich  mark 
the  history  of  the  Roman  Gospel.  The  principal  phenomena 
are  two:  (1)  the  divergence  of  its  present  form  from  prim- 
itive tradition  in  respect  to  the  dale  of  Jesus'  death,  (2)  the 
sujiprcssion  of  its  original  narrative  of  the  Resurrection  as  an 
appearance  first  of  all  to  Peter  in  Galilee,  necessarily  later 
than  "the  third  day,"  in  favor  of  one  which  makes  the  aj)- 
pearance  to  the  women  at  the  sepulcher  "on  the  third  day" 
the  starting  point  of  all.  The  tendencies  of  post-apostolic 
times  to  which  we  ha\-e  referred  will  throw  light  upon  the 
phenomena. 

First  of  these  tendencies  is  the  increasing  prejudice  against 
things  regarded  as  Jewish  in  character.  "Let  there  be 
nothing  in  common  with  the  most  hateful  mob  of  the  Jews, 
We  should  have  no  communion  with  the  practices  of  such 
wicked  men,  the  slayers  of  the  Lord,"  urges  Constantine  in 
his  letter  on  the  paschal  question.  Where  the  infusion  of 
Jewish  blood  and  inlluence  was  slighter,  as  in  the  West,  the 
Church  would  interpret  Paul's  language  against  a  Judaizing 
obser\-ance  of  feasts,  new  moons,  and  Sabbath  days  in  the 
more  uncompromising  sense,  discouraging  as  much  as  pos- 
sible the  practice  of  a  continued  observance  of  the  feast 
of  the  fourteenth  Nisan,  while  at  the  same  time  clinging  to, 
and  exalting  the  weekly  Agape,  with  its  accompanying  com- 
memoration of  "the  Lord's  body."  The  ultimate  and  in- 
evitable triumph  of  the  passover  anni\'ersary  would  be  con- 
ditioned on  recognition  of  the  superior  claims  of  the  weekly 
observance,  leading  to  the  fixation  of  the  principle  that  the 
celebration  of  the  mystery  of  the  Resurrection  was  i)ermis- 
sible  on  no  other  but  the  Lord's  day. 

A  second  tendency  of  the  times  was  a  growing  disposi- 

written  (in  Mt.  12:  29),  that  Clirist  entered  the  house  of  the  Strong  Man 
and  bound  him  and  desjjoilcd  him  of  us  his  vessels"  (rd  ffKtvrj  avrou). 


43©  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

tion  in  face  of  docetic  volatilizings  of  the  resurrection  doc- 
trine, to  insist  upon  the  material  and  concrete  character  of 
Jesus'  resurrection  body,  in  fact  to  identify  the  victory  over 
death  with  the  issuing  of  his  body  from  the  grave.  One  con- 
sequence of  this  un-Pauline  doctrine  of  the  "resurrection  of 
the  flesh"  (t?}?  crdpKo<i  in  the  "Apostles' "  Creed)  was  the 
disappearance  of  the  apostohc  resurrection  tradition  start- 
ing from  the  manifestation  "to  Peter"  in  Galilee.  Paul,  as 
we  know,  makes  this  appearance  to  Peter  equivalent  to  the 
manifestation  of  God's  Son  "in"  himself  (I  Cor.  15:5,  8; 
c}.  Gal.  1 :  16;  2:  8),  and  ignores  occurrences  at  the  sepulcher. 
In  Markan  and  subsequent  evangelic  story  this  resurrection 
tradition  disappears  in  favor  of  another,  whose  starting  point 
is  a  manifestation  to  the  women  at  the  sepulcher  at  dawn 
of  "the  first  day  of  the  week."  Thus  "the  first  day  of  the 
week"  and  its  newly  estabUshed  connection  with  the  Resur- 
rection ^  becomes  the  fundamental  epoch  of  the  Church,  and 
resurrection  traditions  and  obsen-ances  which  failed  to  agree 
with  the  idea  of  the  victory  over  death  as  achieved  on  "the 
Lord's  day,"  especially  if  hke  those  of  Ev.  Petri  they  re- 
ported the  manifestations  to  Peter  and  the  rest  as  subsequent 
to  the  experience  of  the  women,  necessarily  fell  into  the 
background. 

Nothing,  accordingly,  in  the  whole  domain  of  criticism  can 
be  more  certain  than  that  the  Roman  Gospel  of  Mark  in  its 
present  form  has  displaced  the  earUer,  Pauline  resurrection 
tradition,  which  centered  on  the  appearance  to  Peter  in 
Galilee,  when  he  "turned  again  and  stablished  his  brethren" 
justly  redeeming  his  position  as  leader  of  the  Twelve.  In 
Mark  a  later  and  alien  tradition,  which  focusses  attention 

1  "The  third  day"  did  not  necessarily  mean  "the  first  day  of  the  week," 
but  only  Nisan  i6,  the  day  of  Firstfruits.  Mk.  i6:  8  shows  the  newness  of 
the  tradition  by  accounting  for  its  non-appearance  up  to  date.  The  women 
had  not  told  their  experience  "because  they  were  afraid." 


QUARTODECIMANISM  431 

not  on  the  victory  won  over  the  powers  of  darkness  "in  the 
spirit"  wherein  Jesus  "went  and  preached  unto  the  spirits 
in  prison"  (I  Pt.  3:  18-22),  but  on  the  mere  ])hysical  wonder 
of  the  empty  tomb,  has  been  substituted  for  the  apostolic. 
It  is  no  small  merit  of  the  "spiritual  Gospel"  that  while  it 
follows,  and  even  exaggerates — as  was  unavoidable  in  its 
period — the  tendency  toward  the  Jerusalem  form  of  the  tra- 
dition, it  remains  faithful  to  the  conception  of  the  Easter 
anniversary  as  commemorating  the  victory  of  Christ  over 
the  power  of  death  (Jn.  12 :  24-36)  in  the  more  truly  Pauline 
and  authentic  sense.  This  is  the  chief  signiiicance  of  its  re- 
turn to  the  earUer  conception  of  the  nature  and  date  of  the 
Last  Supper  and  the  sacriiice  of  Christ  on  the  cross  as  "our 
passover;"  and  this  "Quartodeciman"  conception  it  main- 
tains firmly  and  uncompromisingly,  albeit  without  needless 
affront  to  recognized  evangehc  authorities. 

The  central  feature  of  the  Johannine  treatment  of  the 
eucharistic  sacrament  is  the  bold  transfer  of  it  from  the  Pass- 
over, with  which  Mark  and  his  satellites  had  made  it  coincide, 
to  another  passover  of  the  preceding  year,  when  Jesus  had 
remained  in  Galilee.  Instead  of  instituting  the  sacrament  of 
his  body  and  blood  at  the  farewell  supper  in  Jerusalem, 
Jesus  is  now  made,  by  what  from  the  merely  historical 
standpoint  is  nothing  less  than  a  staggering  anachronism, 
to  connect  it  with  the  ISIiracle  of  the  Loaves  in  Galilee 
(Jn.  6:30-59).  The  evangehst  attaches  his  interpretative 
discourse  to  a  Markan  feature  of  this  cycle  of  Agape  tra- 
ditions, viz.,  the  Demand  of  a  Sign  from  Heaven  (Mk.  8:11- 
13,  a  sequel  to  the  second  Feeding  of  the  Multitude,  8:  i-io). 
Through  this  connection  the  sacrament  still  remains  as  in 
Mark  a  New  Testament  counterpart  of  the  Passover — for 
the  Miracle  of  the  Loaves  is  expressly  at  "the  passover" 
(6:4) — without  violence  to  this  evangehst's  more  funda- 
mental principle  that  the  death  of  Jesus  on  the  cross  at  the 


432 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 


very  hour  of  Nisan  14  when  the  passover  lambs  were  being 
slain  (3-5  p.  M.;  cf.  Jn,  19:  14,  31,  36),  was  the  real  beginning 
of  the  Christian  passover.  By  this  transfer  the  Fourth  Gos- 
pel displays  a  fundamentally  Quartodeciman  point  of  view. 
The  dissociation  of  the  institution  of  the  Eucharist  from  its 
connection  with  the  passover  supper  and  association  of  it 
with  the  Agape,  as  a  rite  connected  with  the  Galilean  Break- 
ing of  Bread  rather  than  with  the  scenes  of  the  "upper  room," 
is  only  partly  true  to  historical  fact;  for  the  Eucharist  really 
was  instituted  at  Jerusalem  as  an  adaptatio7i  of  the  Breaking 
of  Bread.  Nevertheless  the  correction  of  the  Roman  miscon- 
ception: the  Eucharist  a  substitute  for  Passover,  and  the 
return  to  the  Pauline  and  apostolic:  Christ  crucified  our 
Passover,  his  resurrection  our  Firstfruits,  is  as  true  to  fact, 
and  as  deeply  significant,  as  it  is  distinctive  of  the  behef 
and  practice  of  "Asia"  in  the  second  century. 

We  have  already  noted  as  proof  of  this  Quartodecimanism 
the  many  references  in  the  Johannine  passion  story  which 
tacitly  but  firmly  correct  the  Markan  dating  of  Nisan  15. 
That  which  so  conspicuously  begins  the  series  by  dating  the 
anointing  in  Bethany  "six  days  (c/.  Mk.  14:  i,  'two  days') 
before  the  passover"  (/.  e.,  Nisan  10)  is  inexplicable  save  as 
an  attempt  to  bring  the  story  into  correspondence  with  the 
law  for  the  choosing  of  the  passover  lamb  (Ex.  12:3)  and 
with  actual  Quartodeciman  practice.  The  clear  indications 
of  13:  I  and  29  that  the  Last  Supper  was  held  "before  the 
feast  of  the  passover,"  and  the  substitution  of  the  rite  of  foot- 
washing  (I  Tim.  5:10)  as  an  example  of  self-abnegating 
service  {cj.  Lk.  22:  24-27)  for  the  institution  of  the  eucharist, 
together  with  the  correspondences  subsequently  established 
by  date  and  circumstance  in  the  story  of  the  crucifixion  itself 
between  the  experiences  of  Jesus  and  the  treatment  of  the 
passover  lamb  (19:  14,  t^t^)  leave  no  room  for  reasonable 
doubt  that  the  fourth  evangehst  is  bent  upon  restoring  the 


QUARTODECIMANISM  433 

relation  which  Paul  had  already  formulated  (I  Cor.  5 : 6, 
7;  15:2011.),  but  which  had  been  nulUried  by  the  Markan 
perversion.  Wc  have  seen  that  even  aside  from  Paul,  his- 
torical probabiHty  is  in  favor  of  Nisan  14  rather  than  15  as 
the  true  date.  But  is  it  possible  to  reason  from  this  "correc- 
tion of  the  Synoptics"  that  the  evangehst  was  an  eye-witness 
of  the  events? — The  whole  purpose,  manner,  and  interest  of 
his  narrative  show  that  such  is  not  the  case.  It  is  the  ritual 
interest  which  dominates.  The  anointing,  crucifixion,  death, 
and  resurrection  arc  dated  on  Nisan  loth,  14th  and  i6th 
rcsI)ecti^•cly,  not  because  the  evangehst  recalls  the  true  dates, 
and  wishes  for  the  sake  of  historical  accuracy  to  make  these 
slight  rectifications  in  Synoptic  story;  but  because  the  great 
and  distinctive  ritual  observance  of  the  churches  which  he 
represents  is  at  stake,  an  observance  which  he  rightly  be- 
lieves had  been  transmitted  unbroken  from  the  times  of  the 
apostles,  and  which  if  we  ourseh-es  had  perpetuated  it  might 
have  gone  far  to  counteract  the  materiaHsm  with  which  the 
doctrine  of  Christ's  victory  over  death  has  become  infected. 
Moreover,  in  spite  of  the  conspicuous  anachronism  of  the 
dialogue  which  marks  our  evangelist's  development  of  the 
IMarkan  sequel  to  the  INIiracle  of  the  Loaves,  it  is  quite  a 
mistake  to  suppose  that  Mark  has  altogether  the  right  on  his 
side  and  the  fourth  e\angelist  the  wrong,  in  their  connection 
of  the  Breaking  of  Bread  with  the  Galilean  and  the  Jerusa- 
lem occasions  respectively.  Box  has  justly  pointed  out  that 
Jesus  is  recognized  "in  the  breaking  of  bread"  by  disciples 
who  know  nothing  of  the  latter  (Lk.  24:35).  This  imphes 
that  the  action  at  the  Last  Supper  was  not  so  much  the  in- 
stitution of  a  new  rite  (so  Mark  for  reasons  already  ex- 
plained) as  the  adaptation  and  perpetuation  of  a  practice 
already  characteristic  of  Jesus'  intercourse  with  his  disciples. 
In  asking  them  to  continue  the  practice  "in  memory"  of 
him  (I  Cor.  11 :  24  f.)  Jesus  recalled  the  unselfish  generosity 

Fourth  Gospel — 28 


434  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

of  many  months  of  intercourse,  during  which  he  had  filled 
the  place  of  father  and  host  to  the  little  company.  Yes,  on 
one  occasion  he  had  extended  it  to  a  multitude  of  outsiders 
whom  he  bade  the  disciples  treat  as  guests.^  And  now  at  the 
parting  repast  he  was  giving  all  that  remained  his  to  give, 
his  body  and  his  blood.  He  wished  the  wonted  sharing  of  the 
common  loaf  and  cup  to  remain  a  memorial  of  the  spirit 
which  had  dominated  his  life,  and  was  now  to  be  exemplified 
in  his  death — a^airri^  the  spirit  of  self-abnegating,  minister- 
ing love.  Because  the  observance  instituted  by  Jesus  at  the 
Last  Supper  was  not  new  either  in  the  form  of  observance, 
or  in  the  spirit  exempHfied,  but  only  in  its  present  more 
tragic  appHcation,  the  Eucharist  in  the  practice  of  the 
Church  did  not  become  an  annual  substitute  for  the  Passover, 
as  Mark's  narrative  would  lead  us  to  expect,  but  was  attached 
to  the  Agape  or  banquet  of  brotherhood  to  form  its  solemn 
close.  It  became  thus  from  the  outset  a  rite  of  weekly,  if 
not  of  daily,  occurrence.  In  attaching,  then,  his  interpre- 
tation of  the  Eucharist  to  the  story  of  the  Feeding  of  the 
Multitude  instead  of  to  the  Last  Supper  the  fourth  evangelist 
is  profoundly  true  while  superficially  in  error.  He  violates 
the  mere  historical  proprieties  to  an  extraordinary  degree; 
but  only  the  better  to  convey  the  true,  and  in  a  higher  sense 
the  historical,  meaning  of  the  Church's  rite.  In  connecting 
his  institution  of  the  Eucharist  with  the  Passover  in  Galilee, 
not  with  that  in  Jerusalem,  he  has  flouted  historical  fact  to 
convey  to  us  spiritual  truth. 

The  example  of  the  evangelist's  treatment  of  the  greatest 
of  the  three  appointed  feasts  of  the  Jewish  law  should  serv^e 

1  We  cannot  agree  with  Schmiedel  {op.  cit.,  pp.  103-110)  that  there  is  no 
historical  basis  for  the  story  of  the  Feeding  of  the  Multitude,  six  times  re- 
lated in  the  Gospels.  The  very  persistence  of  the  rite  of  the  brotherhood 
banquet  {iyawri)  attests  the  age  of  the  tradition,  which  in  all  its  details  aims 
to  justify  and  explain  the  ritual. 


QUARTODECLMANISAI  435 

as  our  key  to  his  treatment  of  the  lesser  two.  With  deeper 
and  more  genuine  insight  into  the  true  spirit  of  Paul  than 
that  which  considered  only  his  prohibition  of  Jewish  sab- 
baths, feasts,  and  new  moons,  the  Ephesian  Gospel  empha- 
sizes the  ai^irmative  side  of  the  command  : 

"Let  no  man  judge  you  in  meat  or  drink  or  in  respect  of  a 
feast  day  or  a  new  moon  or  a  sabbath  day:  which  are  a  shadow 
0}  the  things  to  conic;  hut  the  body  is  Christ's."  ^ 

How  the  passover  is  continued  in  the  Agape  and  Eucharist, 
even  though  the  Last  Supper  was  not  a  passover  meal,  is 
shown  in  the  two  passover  narratives  of  the  Gospel,  the  first 
in  Galilee,  the  second  in  Jerusalem.-  We  have  in  addition 
two  further  chapters  devoted  to  the  incidents  and  dialogues 
connected  with  visits  of  Jesus  to  Jerusalem  on  occasion  of 
"the  feasts  of  the  Jews."  The  former  of  these  (chapter  5) 
belongs  to  the  Galilean  ministry  and  leaves  the  feast  un- 
named.^ W^e  have  already  inferred  from  the  subject  of  the 
dialogue  that  the  feast  intended  is  that  of  Pentecost,  the 
feast  regarded  as  commemorating  the  Gi^■ing  of  the  Law. 
We  need  not  here  repeat  the  demonstration  that  Jn.  5  sim- 
ply recasts  the  Markan  group  of  incidents  on  the  Growth 
of  Opposition  (Mk.  2:1-3:6)  itself  framed  on  the  model 
of  the  Q  group  on  How  they  were  stumbled  in  him  (Mt.  1 1 : 
2-19  =  Lk.  7:18-35).  Here,  as  was  appropriate  to  a  first 
occasion  of  Jesus'  observance  of  the  Mosaic  feasts,  the  ques- 
tion of  the  sabbath  occupies  the  foreground.  The  sabbatic 
imitation  of  God's  "rest"  is  not  simply  set  aside  as  in  Mark, 
but  as  in  Hebrews  and  the  fathers  generally,  fulfilled  in  the 
imitation  of  God's  work  of  mercy,  which  is  declared  to  be 

1  Col.  2:  16-17. 

2  On  the  reason  for  disregarding  Jn.  2:  13-25,  see  Chapter  XVIII. 

3  The  reason  of  the  omission  (cancelation)  is  probably  connected  with 
the  present  position  of  the  chapter,  immediately  preceding  the  incidents  of 
"passover"  in  Chapter  6.  On  the  probable  readjustments  of  order  which 
this  |K)rtion  of  the  (lospel  has  undergone,  see  Chapter  XI.X. 


436  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

unbroken.  The  dialogue  sets  the  authority  of  Jesus  as  Son 
of  man  {cf.  Mk.  2:  10,  28)  in  contrast  with  that  of  Moses, 
explains  his  relation  to  John  the  Baptist,  and  concludes  with 
a  parallel  (7:  15-24)  ^  to  the  conspiracy  against  Jesus'  Ufe  of 
Mk.  3 :  6.  Even  the  scenic  setting  of  a  visit  at  Pentecost  to 
Jerusalem  is  less  foreign  to  Mk,  2 :  1-3:6  than  at  first  sight 
would  appear.  Mk.  2 :  23  implied  a  journey  with  the  dis- 
ciples at  the  season  of  Pentecost.  The  conspiracy  of  Mk.  3 :  6 
strikingly  recalls  that  of  Mk.  12:  13  at  Jerusalem.  Still  the 
dominant  reason  for  this  innovation  in  Synoptic  story  must 
be  found  in  the  evangehst's  more  conservative  understand- 
ing of  Christian  continuation  of  "the  feasts  of  the  Jews."  ^ 
As  regards  the  other  feast  which  Jesus  attends  at  Jerusa- 
lem at  the  beginning  of  the  Peraean  ministry  the  evangelist 
is  explicit.  It  is  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  (Jn.  7:  2).  Here 
again  incidents  and  dialogue  reproduce  the  distinctive  fea- 
tures of  the  Jewish  ritual,  water-pouring  and  illumination. 
Tabernacles,  unlike  Pentecost,  would  not  seem  to  have  passed 
over  into  Christian  observance.  Jesus  at  first  declines  to  go 
up  to  this  feast  (7 :  8).  Ultimately,  however,  he  goes  up  at  its 
latter  part,  only,  it  would  seem,  to  make  use  of  its  symboHsm 
as  pointing  to  himself.  Here  too  we  need  not  further  ex- 
emplify the  principle.  What  our  evangehst  gives  is  not 
"careful  enumeration  of  notes  of  time"  for  the  benefit  of 
chronologists  nor  "detailed  recollections  of  an  eye-witness"; 
but  a  reconstruction  of  Markan  story  in  the  sense  of  the 
deeper  and  more  "spiritual"  PauHne  doctrine.  His  beHef 
is  that  Jesus  observed  the  legal  requirement  of  attendance  at 
the  three  feasts  of  the  Jews,  Pentecost,  Tabernacles  and 
Passover,  and  at  the  same  time  that  he  also  transcended  and 

1  On  the  connection  of  this  paragraph  with  Chapter  5,  see  below,  Chapter 
XIX. 

2  For  proof  that  the  alleged  visits  to  Jerusalem  during  the  ministry  are 
nevertheless  quite  unhistorical,  see  Drummond,  pp.  42-46. 


QUARTODECIMANISM  437 

fulfilled  all  in  the  same  manner  as  he  fulfilled  the  great  Feast 
of  tlie  Redemption. 

Our  discussion  of  the  Indirect  Internal  Evidence  has  pur- 
posely refrained  from  those  aspects  of  the  problem  which 
have  been  adequately  and  judiciously  treated  by  others. 
We  have  left  the  history  of  the  Logos  doctrine  in  its  wider 
aspects  to  Aall/  the  relations  of  the  evangelist  to  contempo- 
rary philosophic  thought  to  J.  Grill,'  the  Prologue  to  Har- 
nack  and  Baldensperger.^  Even  the  biblical  theology  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel,  including  the  demonstration  of  the  late 
and  advanced  character  of  the  evangelist's  eschatology,^  his 
doctrine  of  sin  and  redemption  and  the  like  we  have  left  to 
Scott,  not  to  mention  others.  We  have  said  nothing  of  the 
evangehst's  oracular  style,  not  merely  adopted  for  himself 
but  put  in  the  mouth  of  Jesus  and  more  or  less  of  all  the 
characters.  The  conception  of  Jesus'  mode  of  speech,  and 
of  "inspired"  utterance  in  general,  seems  to  be  that  of 
apodictic,  enigmatic  apothegms  on  the  mystic  relations  of 
the  soul,  whose  deeper  senses  are  developed  by  the  misun- 
derstanding they  uniformly  encounter  in  the  hearers.  This 
form  of  dialectic,  monotonously  revolving  around  the  same 
few  great  themes,  has  been  sufficiently  set  forth  as  char- 
acteristic of  the  "  Johannine"  style  by  Schmiedel  and  Wrede.^ 
It  certainly  is  not  primitive  or  true  to  fact. 

^  Geschichte  der  Logosidee,  Bd.  I,  1896;  Bd.  II,  1899. 

2  Untersuchungen  iiher  die  Entstehiiug  des  vierlen  Evangcliums.  Erster 
Theii,  1902. 

3  Der  Prolog  des  vierten  Evaugeliiims,  sein  polemisch-apologetischer 
Zweck,  1898. 

*  On  this,  see  the  noteworthy  admission  of  Drummond,  j).  37. 

5  Charakler  und  Tendenz  des  J ohannesei'angeliiims,  1903.  The  argument 
is  not  answered  by  counting  the  number  of  sentences  to  a  paragraph  and 
showing  that  the  sentences  of  the  fourth  evangelist  are  not  longer  than  the 
Synoptists'.  Dnjmmond  (pp.  16-20)  has  more  nearly  defined  the  diilcr- 
encc  as  one  of  contents;  but  this  is  not  all. 


438  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

With  all  these  omissions  our  results  are  far  from  supporting 
the  theory  of  an  eye-witness  giving  "precise  and  detailed 
recollections."  On  the  contrary,  the  whole  structure  of  the 
work  reveals  a  non-historical,  theoretic  purpose.  Its  whole 
conception  of  Jesus'  career,  and  his  relation  to  his  environ- 
ment is  patterned  on  the  disputes  of  the  post-apostolic  age. 
His  teaching  is  a  more  developed  Paulinism;  the  reported 
incidents  of  his  hfe  are  dependent  on  Synoptic  tradition, 
sometimes  misunderstood,  more  often  than  not  exaggerated 
and  distorted  to  fit  theological  assumptions  as  to  his  super- 
human nature.  The  unhistorical  tendencies  which  already 
become  apparent  by  comparison  of  the  earlier  sources  are 
here  uniformly  found  carried  much  further  still.  The  "pre- 
cise details"  supposed  to  speak  for  the  "eye-witness"  on 
closer  scrutiny  tend  to  the  opposite  conclusion,  and  even 
the  "corrections  of  the  Synoptics"  which  have  some  right  to 
be  considered  really  such,  find  their  most  reasonable  and 
simple  explanation  in  a  tradition  and  practice  older  indeed 
than  that  represented  by  the  Synoptic  Gospels  in  their  pres- 
ent form,  but  by  no  means  attributable  to  eye-witnesses  only. 

If  then  our  decision  be  adverse  to  the  historicity  of  this 
Gospel,  as  well  as  to  its  apostohc  authorship,  it  by  no  means 
follows  that  the  foes  of  true  evangelic  orthodoxy  gain  any 
advantage  whatever.  A  theory  of  authorship  based  on  the 
guesses  of  second  century  editors  will  be  given  up,  a  theory 
which  has  no  support  in  the  nature  of  the  writing  itself,  and 
only  abuses  it  in  the  attempt  to  make  the  "spiritual"  sub- 
servient to  the  material,  the  metaphysical  to  the  concrete. 
When  we  have  ceased  the  barren  search  for  the  "precise  and 
detailed  recollections  of  an  eye-witness"  where  none  should 
be  expected,  and  have  learned  something  of  the  nature  of 
this  writing  by  observing  its  literary  connections  and  the 
environment  from  which  it  grew,  we  shall  begin  to  win  from 
it  tenfold  greater  service  to  our  devotion  and  faith  than  ever 


QUARTODECIMANISM  439 

heretofore.  The  "precise  details  of  an  eye-witness"  cor- 
recting the  imperfect  record  of  Synoptic  story  seem  very 
precious  in  the  eyes  of  the  historical  critic;  but  they  have 
never  been  to  the  average  Christian  the  reason  for  his  love 
of  this  Gospel.  The  reason  has  been  that  it  ga\c  expression 
more  perfectly  than  any  other  to  the  profound  and  spiritual 
gospel  of  Paul,  that  apostle  who  not  having  known  Christ 
after  the  flesh  yet  })enetrated  more  deeply  than  any  other  to 
the  true  significance  of  his  being  and  message.  It  gave  men 
life  tlirough  faith — taught  them  "by  beUeving  to  have  life 
in  his  name."  It  is  Paul  who  really  speaks  again  to  us 
through  the  pages  of  the  P'ourth  Gospel,  and  Paul  was  not 
deceived  when  he  wrote  "and  we  have  the  mind  of  Christ." 
That  disci})le  to  whom  his  life  had  become  no  longer  his  own 
but  Christ  living  in  him  speaks  to  us  through  the  form  of 
"the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved." 

When  we  can  be  satisfied  to  take  this  Gospel  for  what  it  is, 
the  richest,  choicest  flower  of  the  spiritual  life  of  the  Pauline 
churches  a  half-century  after  Paul's  death,  when  we  begin 
to  study  its  spiritual  lessons  against  the  background  of  that 
inward  history,  a  new  era  will  begin  in  the  appreciation  of 
this  great  Gospel.  But  "spiritual  things  must  be  spiritually 
discerned." 


PART  IV 
LATEST  PHASES  OF  DEBATE  AND  RESEARCH 


PART  IV 

LATEST  PHASES  OF  DEBATE  AND  RESEARCH 

CHAPTER    XVH 

THE   DEFENSE   OF   THE   GOSPEL 

A  generation  ago  "the  genuineness  of  St.  John's  Gospel" 
was  declared  by  the  foremost  conservative  scholar  to  be 
"the  center  of  the  position  of  those  w^ho  uphold  the  his- 
torical truth  of  the  record  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  given  us 
in  the  New  Testament."  ^  The  latest  supporters  of  the 
traditional  view  of  the  authorship  it  is  to  be  hoped  are  not 
disposed  to  throw  upon  its  opponents  the  odium  of  disloyalty 
to  the  common  Lord  and  Master,  or  even  of  enmity  to  that 
mystical  or  Pauline  clement  in  our  religion,  which  seems 
to  be  represented  in  it.  Still  it  may  be  well,  since  they  have 
chosen  for  themselves  the  title  of  "defenders  of  the  Gospel" 
to  state  that  those  of  opposite  conviction  are  equally  per- 
suaded that  the  Gospel  does  need  "defense" — from  some 
of  its  friends;  also  that  there  is  a  type  of  criticism  which 
justly  deserves  the  epithet  "destructive,"  because  in  the  in- 
terest of  a  mere  ecclesiastical  theory  of  authorship  educed 
by  second-century  editors  from  mistaken  premises,  it  under- 
mines all  confidence  in  the  historical  veracity  and  sincerity 
of  the  author.  True  "defense,"  on  the  other  hand,  would 
make  clear  his  real  endeavor  to  set  forth  the  whole  truth  as 
he  sees  it,  however  he  inclines  to  emphasize  its  doctrinal  side. 

1  Lightfoot.     See  above,  p.  i. 
443 


444  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

So  long  as  it  is  maintained  that  the  author  could  have  made 
real  historic  fact  the  basis  of  his  "spiritual"  interpretation 
of  Jesus'  life  and  teaching,  our  respect  for  his  message  can 
with  difficulty  survive  the  shock  of  the  discovery  that  he 
has  turned  in  preference  to  mere  fiction  and  allegory.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  as  we  have  maintained,  his  attemj)t,  how- 
ever anachronistic  and  a  priori,  is  not  consciously  false  to 
historic  truth,  it  requires  only  an  adjustment  on  our  part  to 
his  circumstances  and  point  of  view  to  welcome  his  work  as 
full  of  light  and  truth.  It  will  prove  an  illuminating  and 
inspiring  revelation  of  the  Pauline  conception  of  the  eternal 
and  spiritual  Christ,  as  apprehended  by  the  generation  after 
Paul.  Critics  who  are  engaged  in  the  facilitation  of  this  ad- 
justment do  not  feel  that  their  work  is  justly  designated 
"destructive,"  even  if  it  require  the  demolition  of  a  vener- 
able tradition  of  the  Church.  Since  the  disposition,  how- 
ever, appears  to  be  still  strong  to  identify  defense  of  the 
tradition  with  defense  of  the  Gospel,  we  shall  endeavor,  at 
the  risk  even  of  a  repetition  which  may  seem  tedious,  to  state 
precisely  where  the  issue  lies.  For  experience  warns  us  that 
a  single  positive,  and — to  our  own  apprehension — unam- 
biguous statement  may  prove  to  be  no  protection  against 
misunderstanding  in  even  the  highest  quarters.^ 

1  In  the  article  entitled  "The  'Defence'  of  the  Fourth  Gospel"  {Hihbert 
Journal,  VI,  i,  Oct.,  1907,  p.  123)  the  present  author  cited  as  an  instance 
of  fallibility  in  exegesis  even  in  so  great  an  exegete  as  Professor  Sanday,  the 
statements  that  "Professor  Bacon  ascribes  the  main  body  of  the  Gospel  to 
John  the  Presbyter"  {Criticism,  p.  24)  and  that  he  follows  "those  critics  of 
vigour  and  rigour,  Schmiedel  and  H.  J.  Holtzmann,  who  would  distinguish 
the  author  of  the  First  Epistle  of  St.  John  from  the  Author  of  the  Gospel." 
In  reality  Professor  Bacon  had  written  {Introduction,  etc.,  p.  268):  "The 
main  source  on  which  the  compiler  of  John  in  its  present  form  has  relied  is 
unmistakably  the  work  of  the  writer  of  the  three  Epistles";  and  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter,  on  "The  Apocalypse  and  the  Epistles"  (p.  249),  he  had 
written  of  the  latter,  "Their  author  superscribes  himself  simply  'The  El- 
der.' .  .  .  There  remains  nothing  to  indicate  that  the  unknown  Elder's 
name  was  John  rather  than  Alcibiades  or  Melchizedek."    In  the  kindliest 


DEFENSE  OF  THE  GOSPEL  445 

If  our  discussion  thus  far  has  had  any  value  toward  clari- 
fication of  the  issue  it  must  have  become  apparent  that  the 
question  really  turns  first  of  all  upon  the  credibility  of  the 
statement  of  the  last  (authentic)  verse  of  the  Appendix 
(21 :  24),  and  second  upon  the  relation  of  this  Appendix  and 
its  kindred  "parenthetic  additions"  in  the  body  of  the  Gos- 
pel to  the  deeper  substance.  The  "defenders'  "  whole  case, 
so  far  as  the  external  evidence  is  concerned,  rests  al^solutely 
upon  the  single  verse  Jn.  21:24;  because  there  is  not  one 
attribution  of  the  Gospel  to  John,  early  or  late,  direct  or  in- 
direct, which  admits  of  even  plausible  reference  to  any  other 
source.  We  are  agreed  with  the  "defenders" — although  the 
matter  is  still  disputed — as  to  the  meaning  of  this  verse. 
Wc  believe  that  it  really  intends  to  attribute  the  Gospel  to 
the  Apostle  John.  We  also  agree — against  some  "destruc- 
tive" critics — with  conservatives  such  as  Lightfoot  and  Blass 
that  it  is  impossible  to  dissociate  the  verse  in  question  from 
the  kindred  assertion  of  19:  35  which  "defenders"  make  one 
of  the  cardinal  positions  (when  not  the  cardinal  position)  in 
their  argument  from  the  internal  evidence.  We  may  be 
pardoned,  therefore,  if  we  devote  some  further  consideration 
to  these  central  positions  of  the  external  and  internal  evi- 
dence. 

It  is  to  be  recalled  first  of  all  that  we  are  dealing  with  an 
anonymous  work,  which  makes  no  claim  to  be  from  the  hand 
of  John,^  and  which  is  only  brought  into  connection  with  his 
name  by  means  of  an  Epilogue  (21 :  24  f.),  acknowledged  by 
the  most  ardent  "defenders,"  including  Professor  Sanday 

spirit,  and  with  a  courtesy  provcrljial  among  all  who  know  him,  Pro- 
fessor Sanday  has  privately  expressed  his  regret  at  the  unintentional  mis- 
representation— not  so  surprising  in  view  of  the  wide  acceptance  of  the 
theory  ably  represented  by  Harnack.  Since,  however,  the  private  expression 
alone  can  scarcely  overtake  the  printed  word,  we  feel  compelled  to  guard 
in  the  present  chapter  against  further  misunderstanding. 
1  On  the  ambiguous  passages  alleged  to  be  such,  see  below. 


446  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

himself,  to  be  attached  at  a  later  time  by  another  and  un 
known  hand.^     Even  the  meaning  of  this  unknown  editor  is 
a  subject  of  dispute,  to  say  nothing  of  the  value  of  his  opin- 
ion.   Yet  Professor  Sanday  writes: 

"  The  critics  who  assert  that  the  Gospel  is  not  the  work  of  an 
eye-witness,  and  even  those  who  say  that  the  last  chapter  was  not 
written  by  the  author  of  the  whole,  wantonly  accuse  these  last 
words  (21:  24)  of  untruth.  That  is  another  of  the  methods  of 
modern  criticism  that  seem  to  me  sorely  in  need  of  reforming. 
I  hope  that  a  time  may  come  when  it  will  be  considered  as  wrong 
to  Hbel  the  dead  as  it  is  to  Hbel  the  Hving." 

In  this  hope  for  better  observance  of  the  Ninth  Command- 
ment we  cannot  but  concur.  As  regards  "accusations"  and 
"defenses,"  the  facts  are  these.  To  make  it  appear  possible 
to  accept  the  statement  of  the  writer  of  Jn.  21:  24,  in  the 
particular  sense  attributed  to  it  by  Tatian  ( ?),  Theophilus  of 
Antioch,  Irenasus,  and  subsequent  tradition,  two  critics  in 
modern  times  have  ventured  so  far  as  to  describe  the  story 
of  the  raising  of  Lazarus  (Jn.  11)  as  intentional  and  con- 
scious fiction.  One  is  Renan,  whose  stubborn  clinging  to 
the  traditional  authorship  was  not  usually  considered  to 
atone  for  the  violence  done  in  its  interest  to  both  critical 
sense  and  religious  feehng.  Renan  explained  the  story  of 
the  raising  of  Lazarus  as  a  pious  fraud  at  which  Jesus,  under 
pressure  of  circumstances,  was  guilty  of  connivance.  The 
scene  was  an  acted  fiction  in  which  Jesus  consented  to  be 
chief  viroKpirrj^l  The  other  vindicator  of  apostolicity  at  the 
expense  of  veracity  is  Principal  Drummond,  the  appearance 
of  whose  book  is  thus  greeted  by  Professor  Sanday: — 

1  See,  e.  g.,  Zahn,  Einleiiung,  ii,  §  66,  pp.  485,  487,  and  Sanday,  p.  81. 
The  latter  admits  that  Chapter  21  is  an  appendix,  but  "by  the  same  hand 
as  the  rest  of  the  Gospel,"  written  when  "the  aged  disciple,  feeling  death 
stealing  upon  him,  might  point  out  that  no  words  of  Jesus  justified  the 
expectation"  (of  his  survival).     The  last  phrase  is  quoted  by  Sanday  from 


DEFENSE  OF  THE  GOSPEL  447 

"To  one  who  himself  firmly  believed  in  St.  John's  authorship 
of  the  Gospel,  and  in  its  value  as  a  record  of  the  beginning  of 
Christianity,  the  outlook  last  autumn  seemed  very  black.  A 
single  book  dispelled  the  clouds  and  cleared  the  air.  Dr.  Drum- 
mond's  Character  and  Authorship  0}  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  of 
s])ecial  value  to  the  defenders  of  the  Gospel  .  .  .  the  whole 
work  is  something  more  than  a  defence  of  the  Gospel." 

Principal  Dnimmond  attributes  the  pious  fraud  to  the 
Apostle  John.  This  "eye-witness,"  he  conceives,  not  only 
invented  the  whole  story  of  Lazarus  "to  set  forth  in  a  vivid 
and  picturesque  form  the  truth  that  Jesus  is  the  resurrection 
and  the  Hfe,"  but  expressly  intended  it  as  "a  repudiation  of 
the  older  story"  of  the  Synoptic  writers,  although  these,  as 
he  admits,  had  set  forth  the  real  facts  in  substantial  truth 
and  soberness.^ 

To  one  who  himself  firmly  beheved  in  the  sincerity  of 
both  the  anonymous  evangelist  and  of  his  editor  in  the  Ap- 
pendix, however  slight  the  qualifications  of  either  for  his- 
torical or  Hterary  criticism,  Principal  Drummond's  book  did 
not  come  quite  as  the  clear  shining  after  rain.  To  opponents 
as  well  as  friends  of  the  traditional  authorship  it  has  a  very 
great  and  special  value,  as  may  be  seen  from  our  own  de- 
pendence on  it  in  the  preceding  chapter.  Its  discussion  of 
the  internal  evidence  deser\-es  even  Professor  Sanday's  en- 
comiums. But  the  attempt  to  rescue  deductions  previously 
made  from  the  external  evidence,  by  resort  to  an  extreme 
theory  of  allegory  to  counteract  the  inferences  naturally  sug- 
gested by  the  internal,  is  a  fatal  weakness  of  the  book.  At- 
tempts to  gain  credit  for  a  theory  of  authorship  by  dis- 
crediting the  author  still  seem  to  us  more  Uke  "Hbel  of  the 
dead"  than  the  belief  that  the  author  of  the  Epilogue  was  in 

Drummond.    He  also  admits  that  "  at  the  very  end  (21:  24)  another  hand 
does  take  up  the  pen." 
1  Op.  cil.,  p.  63. 


448  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

error.^  To  Professor  Sanday  they  convey  "an  enhance- 
ment of  the  value  of  the  Gospel  as  a  record  of  the  beginning 
of  Christianity."  The  mere  unreformed  critic  might  prefer 
not  to  be  required  to  take  the  sacred  writer's  professed  de- 
votion to  truth  and  loyalty  to  the  concrete  facts  of  history 
(I  Jn.  1 :  2,  3;  Jn.  i :  14-17  f.,  19:  35)  in  a  Pickwickian  sense, 
nor  to  occupy  in  his  own  person  the  position  of  certain  well- 
meaning  rabbis  whom  Jesus  rebuked  for  "making  the  word 
of  God  of  none  effect  that  they  might  keep  their  tradi- 
tion." 

The  exegesis  is  not  yet  wholly  obsolete  which  defends  the 
traditional  theory  of  the  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch  by 
declaring  that  ]\Ioses  wrote  by  anticipation  the  account  of 
his  own  death  which  concludes  the  book.  The  Talmud 
even  depicts  him  bewailing  his  own  end  as  the  Spirit  dictated 
the  words.  Later  it  was  thought  wiser  to  allow  that  the 
passages  relating  to  the  death  of  the  assumed  authors  of  the 
books  of  Moses,  Joshua,  and  Samuel  (these  passages  and 
no  more)  were  written  as  appendices  "by  their  disciples." 
The  history  of  the  ecclesiastical  tradition  of  Johanninc  au- 
thorship is  following  step  by  step  in  the  same  course.  Does 
the  Appendix  appear  to  refer  to  the  death  of  the  Beloved 
Disciple? — It  was  written  by  him  by  anticipation.  Does  the 
last  verse  speak  in  the  name  of  others? — It  was  written  "by 
his  disciples."  Does  the  contrast  developed  throughout  the 
chapter  between  the  "red  martyrdom"  of  Peter  and  the 
peaceful  end  of  "this  man"  seem  to  show  that  the  last  verse 
cannot  be  disjoined  from  the  context?  Does  the  allusion 
to  current  associations  of  the  name  of  John  with  the  earthly 
"witnesses  of  Messiah,"  who  according  to  ]\It.  16:  28  were 

1  We  hold  no  brief  for  Harnack,  whom  Professor  Sanday  rebukes  for 
"imputing  deliberate  fraud"  to  the  writer  of  21:24.  Harnack's  view  is 
his  own.  But  Professor  Sanday  extends  the  charge  expressly  to  all  "who 
say  that  the  last  chapter  was  not  written  by  the  author  of  the  whole"! 


DEFENSE  OF  THE  GOSPEL  449 

to  be  alive  and  remain  at  the  coming  of  the  Lord,  expecta- 
tions which  only  the  event  itself  could  really  disjirovc,  seem 
to  show  a  knowledge  both  of  John's  death  and  of  conflict 
between  the  inconsistent  forms  of  the  tradition? — All  this 
is  nothing.  "The  aged  disciple  felt  death  stealing  upon 
him,"  seized  his  pen  and  wrote  the  Appendix.  The  Gospel 
itself,  though  long  since  comj)leted,  had  been  kept  from 
circulation  until  death  should  be  just  near  enough  to  make 
it  certain  John  woukl  not  survive  the  parousia,  but  not  so 
near  as  to  incapacitate  him  for  his  literary  task. 

But  let  us  refrain  from  characterizing  this  type  of  exe- 
gesis and  turn  rather  to  a  more  careful  justification  of  our 
own. 

We  ha\-e  seen  that  Lightfoot  and  Sanday  were  perfectly 
justified  in  pointing  to  the  close  connection  between  Jn,  19: 
35  and  21 :  24  as  indicating  an  intention  to  identify  the  "wit- 
ness" in  question  as  the  Apostle  John.  This  interpretation 
ought  never  to  have  been  questioned.  Even  the  authority 
of  so  eminent  a  scholar  as  Bousset  is  unavaiHng  to  make 
it  seem  probable  that  the  Beloved  Disciple  of  verse  20  is 
to  be  sought  among  the  nameless  "other  two  disciples"  of 
verse  2,  rather  than  "the  sons  of  Zebedee"  of  the  same 
verse.  In  his  third  lecture  (pp.  97-108)  Professor  Sanday 
does  not  conceal  the  strong  attraction  which  he  feels  toward 
the  theory  of  Delff,  which  cxi)lains  the  confusion  in  second- 
century  tradition  between  John  the  Apostle  and  "John  the 
Elder,"  by  attributing  the  Johannine  writings  to  the  latter 
and  applying  to  him  most  of  the  traditions.  The  theory 
unquestionably  gains  weight  from  the  growing  evidence  most 
forcibly  presented  by  Bousset,^  that  the  martyrdom  of  the 
son  of  Zebedee  predicted  in  Mt.  2o:23  =  Mk.  10:39,  ^^r 
which  Lk.  22:30  significantly  substitutes  the  logion  Mt. 
19:  28,  not  only  took  place  in  Judaea  not  long  after  that  of 

1  Theol.  Rundschau,  1905,  pp.  225,  277  ff.    See  above,  Chapter  V. 
Fourth  Gospel — 29 


450  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

the  namesake  of  his  brother/  but  was  actually  related  by 
Papias.^  Nevertheless  the  objection  which  appears  to  be 
the  most  serious  in  Professor  Sanday's  view  is  to  us  also 
insuperable.  Galatians  and  Acts  certainly  have  the  son  of 
Zebedee  in  mind  as  the  John  who  is  associated  with  Peter 
as  nearest  in  apostolic  rank,  and  in  Mk.  3:  16,  17  he  is  on 
the  road  to  this  distinction.  It  is  not  sound  and  impartial 
exegesis  which  would  substitute  in  the  Appendix,  where  the 
"two  witnesses"  are  balanced  over  against  one  another,  Peter 
plus  some  utterly  unknown  personage  in  place  of  "Peter  and 
John."  Delff  and  Bousset  yield  here  to  the  laudable  but  mis- 
leading desire  to  justify  tradition  and  acquit  R  of  error.  We 
have  seen  already  an  explanation  of  the  incoming  of  the  name 
of  "John"  more  in  accord  with  the  known  facts  of  second- 
century  debate. 

We  must  further  concede  to  Professor  Sanday  the  real 
weight  of  that  authority  to  which  he  refers  as  all-sufhcient 
for  the  proof  that  the  last  chapter  is  by  the  same  hand  as  the 
rest  of  the  Gospel.^  Lightfoot  adduces  some  linguistic  proof 
of  that  close  connection  of  the  Appendix  with  portions  of  the 
rest  of  the  Gospel  which  the  present  writer  thought  more 
convincingly  demonstrated  by  the  connection  of  the  dis- 
arranged material  of  the  Gospel  with  the  Appendix.^  The 
inference  drawn  in  our  own  study  of  the  relation  was  that 
the  Appendix  was  part  of  a  general  revision  and  recasting 
of  the  "Johannine"  material  to  bring  it  into  acceptable 
adjustment   to   "Petrine"    (Synoptic)   tradition.      Both  the 

1  Schwartz,  Tod  der  S^luie  Zehedaei,  thinks  of  the  actual  brother,  Acts 
12:  I,  in  spite  of  Gal.  2:  9. 

2  Fragment  vi,  ap.  Apostolic  Fathers,  Lightfoot-Harmer,  1891. 

3  The  note  (p.  81)  has  only,  "For  the  proof,  see  especially  Lightfoot." 
The  reference  is  proVjably  to  Biblical  Essays,  p.  194. 

*  See  Bacon,  Introd.  to  N.  T.  Literature,  1900,  pp.  269,  274,  especially 
the  note  (p.  274)  showing  the  connection  of  i3:36f.  with  21:  19,  22;  also 
above,  p.  198. 


DEFENSE  OF  THE  GOSPEL  451 

superficial  resemblances  of  phraseology  and  style  which 
every  reader  can  verify  (though  Lightfoot  has  given  them 
more  careful  enumeration)  and  also  the  much  deeper  and 
more  significant  differences  of  conception  and  view-point  to 
which  later  critics  have  repeatedly  called  attention,  have 
real  significance.  After  the  discussion  already  given  to  the 
Cjuestion  the  reader  cannot  be  in  doubt  concerning  our  judg- 
ment of  what  that  significance  is.  All  that  concerns  us  now 
is  to  point  out  that  the  argument  so  often  brought  against 
critics  of  their  disagreement  among  themselves  has  here  also 
its  converse  application.  It  is  neither  surprising  nor  seri- 
ously disconcerting  to  opponents  of  the  tradition  to  find  their 
constructive  elTorts  attended  by  even  widely  varying  results. 
But  "defenders"  cannot  afford,  after  having  brought  down 
the  ark  of  God  into  the  camp  by  resting  all  the  future  of 
revealed  religion  on  the  assurance  that  "the  last  chapter 
(the  Appendix)  was  written  by  the  author  of  the  \yhole,"  to 
fall  into  such  disagreement  as  that  of  Sanday  with  Zahn, 
"the  prince  of  conservative  scholars."  For  Zahn  finds  him- 
self compelled  to  draw  the  line  not  at  the  concluding  verse, 
but  at  the  concluding  chapter  of  the  Gospel,  interpreting  the 
phenomena  of  mingled  superficial  resemblance  and  under- 
lying dissimilarity  by  a  less  close  relation  of  the  author  of 
the  Appendix  to  the  Apostle: 

"The  traces  of  a  hand  different  from  that  of  the  author  of  the 
book  are  observable  not  in  verse  24  f.  only,  but  already  from  21:2 
onward.  The  inference  from  this  that  the  entire  Aj)pendix  was 
attached  by  the  friends  of  John  who  come  distinctly  to  the  front 
in  verse  24  must  be  admitted."  ^ 

Since,  then,  the  ([uestion  whether  "the  last  chapter  was 
written  by  the  author  of  the  whole"  is  at  least  a  debatable 
one,  we  may  reasonably  devote  some  further  consideration  to 
the  alternative  explanations,  one  of  which  treats  21 :  24  and  the 

1  Zahn,  Einl.,  Bd.  II,  §  66,  p.  487. 


452  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

related  material,  especially,  19:  35,  as  representing  the  hand 
and  the  opinion  of  a  re\ising  editor  (R),  who  has  before  him 
not  only  the  Gospel,  but  also  its  earlier  Epilogue  of  the  Three 
Epistles,  including  specifically  I  Jn.  5:6-9  and  III  Jn.  12; 
the  other  of  which  assumes  that  his  information  is  derived 
immediately  from  the  Apostle. 

Revision  and  recasting  are  the  phenomena  which  recent 
research  has  brought  more  prominently  than  aught  else  to 
view.  Moreover,  they  affect  not  this  Gospel  only,  but  all 
products  of  the  kind.  Of  the  evidences  that  the  Fourth 
Gospel  is  no  exception  to  the  rule  we  shall  see  more  in  the 
succeeding  chapter,  confining  ourselves  at  this  point  to  a 
protest  against  classification  with  the  so-called  partitionists, 
Delff,  Wendt,  and  Briggs,  in  spite  of  previous  endeavor  to 
avoid  the  confusion.^ 

As  regards  John  the  Elder  and  his  supposed  connection 
with  the  author  of  the  "  Johannine"  Epistles  and  Gospel  we 
emphatically  reject  the  idea  that  he  has  any  connection  of 
the  kind.  "The  Elder  John,"  so  called  by  Papias  to  dis- 
tinguish him  from  the  Apostle,  is  a  dim  and  distant  figure 
for  Papias  himself,  utterly  unknown  in  Asia,  unquestion- 
ably a  historical  figure,  but  by  all  the  indications  of  con- 
temporary usage  as  regards  the  seat  of  the  authoritative 
tradition  of  "the  Elders,"  a  resident  of  Jerusalem."  No  ob- 
jection exists  to  Delff's  view  that  some  of  the  tales  regarding 
"  John"  related  by  Polycrates  and  others  may  have  originally 
applied  to  this  John;  but  the  attempt  to  set  aside  the  full, 
plain  refutation  by  Eusebius  of  Irena?us'  confusion,  a  refuta- 
tion made  with  the  work  of  Papias  open  before  him,  is 

1  For  previous  efforts  see  Bacon,  Introduction,  1900,  p.  268.  For  the  dis- 
tinction itself,  below,  Chapter  XVIII. 

^  Cf.  Hegesippus  on  the  "succession"  in  Jerusalem  "down  to  the  times 
of  Trajan,"  ap.  Eus.,  H.  E.  Ill,  xix,  xx,  1-8,  etc.,  passim,  on  "The  apostles 
and  elders  in  Jerusalem,"  the  superscriptions  of  "James"  and  "  Jude"  and 
the  John  of  Jerusalem,  ap.  Eus._.  H.  E.  IV,  v,  3. 


DEFENSE  OF  THE  GOSPEL  453 

irrational,  and  lliat  which  seeks  to  connect  the  Fourth  Gospel 
with  him  is  equally  so.  John  the  Elder  cannot  possibly  have 
written  Epistles  or  Gospel.^  The  traditions  actually  trace- 
able to  him  are  at  the  very  opposite  pole  from  the  doctrine  of 
these  writings.  They  rej)resent  a  crude  millenarianism  of 
the  most  pronounced  type,  utterly  irreconcilable  with  the 
highly  spiritualized  eschatology  of  the  X  literature. 

The  whole  endeavor  somehow  or  other  to  connect  this 
Jerusalem  Elder  with  the  "  Johannine"  Epistles  and  Gospel 
is  due  to  the  notion  that  the  attachment  to  them  of  the  name 
"John"  must  somehow  be  accounted  for.  But  the  attach- 
ment accounts  for  itself  the  moment  we  find  a  previous  at- 
tachment of  it  to  the  Ephcsian  apocalypse  of  Revelation. 
And  this  we  do  find  made  in  several  writers  some  decades 
earlier  than  the  attachment  to  the  rest  of  the  Ephesian  canon. 
The  Epistles  emanate  it  is  true  from  an  "Elder";  but  who 
else  but  one  who  held  this  office  would  write  epistles  to 
churches?  At  an  earher  point  of  our  discussion  we  have 
proposed,  simply  as  a  working  hypothesis,  to  identify  this 
nameless  Ephesian  "Elder"  of  the  Epistles  with  the  revered 
and  nameless  teacher  of  Justin  Martyr.-  For  convenience 
let  us  call  him  Theologos.  The  Elder  Theologos  will  be  the 
author  of  the  Gospel  in  the  form  it  possessed  before  the  final 
revision  which  aims  to  adapt  it  to  general  circulation  and 
identifies  its  enigmatic  figure  of  the  Beloved  Disciple  with 
the  .\postle  John.  Whether  previous  to  the  form  given  it  by 
the  Elder  Theologos  the  Gospel,  or  elements  of  it,  had  cir- 
culated in  still  simpler  form  is  a  more  difficult,  perhaps  a 
fruitless,  c|uestion.  There  arc,  nevertheless,  certain  indica- 
tions that  such  was  the  case.  The  evidence  seems,  however, 
to  the  present  writer  too  i)recarious  to  warrant  the  assertion 

1  The  Apocalypse  he  might,  if  \vc  distinguish  the  Palestinian  nucleus  from 
the  Asiatic  envelope. 

2  Above,  p.  207. 


454  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

that  this  earliest  hand  was  other  than  that  of  Theologos 
himself.  Whoever  it  was,  his  qualifications  for  his  task  were 
by  no  means  those  of  an  apostle,  or  even  of  an  eye-witness, 
but  such  as  we  might  attribute  to  an  Apollos. 

For  the  author  of  the  Appendix  and  recaster  of  the  Gospel, 
who  adjusted  the  Asiatic  or  Pauline  tradition  to  the  Petrine 
of  Syria  and  Rome,  we  have  no  designation  save  the  title 
Redactor.  This  editor  (R)  gave  to  the  Gospel  its  authorita- 
tive currency  by  his  not  unnatural  identification  of  "the 
disciple  whom  Jesus  loved"  with  the  son  of  Zebedee,  and 
by  ascribing  to  him  the  writing  and  testimony.  R  was  a 
contemporary  of  Papias,  Polycarp,  and  Justin,  probably  a 
Roman.  He  doubtless  believed  with  Papias  and  Justin  that 
"John  the  Apostle"  had  been  "in  the  Spirit"  in  the  island 
of  Patmos,  whence  he  had  addressed  letters  to  the  churches 
of  Asia.  What  more  natural  than  to  attribute  to  John  the 
anonymous  Gospel  also  ?  R  knew,  moreover,  that  Polycarp 
claimed  to  have  seen  and  heard  that  Apostle — whether  cor- 
rectly or  by  confusion  with  some  other  depends  upon  the 
date  of  the  Apostle's  death.  Polycarp's  memories  and  the 
Seven  Epistles  of  Rev.  1-3,  would  tend  to  make  John  the 
natural  patron  apostle  of  Asia.  Otherwise  there  is  nothing 
to  indicate  that  R  thought  of  him  as  having  ever  been  there. 
On  the  contrary,  it  is  Peter  who  is  carried  away  "whither  he 
would  not,"  and  John  who  "abides"  with  the  flock.  So  the 
Muratorianum  understands  the  Appendix,  and  so  it  was 
probably  meant.  Even  for  Ignatius  and  Polycarp,  Paul,  not 
John,  is  still  the  Apostle  of  Asia. 

To  decline  to  accept  R's  opinion  on  the  authorship  of  the 
Gospel  is  not  to  "wantonly  accuse  the  Epilogue  of  untruth." 
No  modern  scholar  feels  bound  to  accept  that  of  "  Jude  the 
brother  of  James"  on  the  authorship  of  Enoch,  any  more 
than  that  of  the  Muratorianum  on  the  authorship  of  the 
Epilogue  in  its  turn;  for  the  Muratorianum  attributes  this  to 


DEFENSE  OF  THE  GOSPEL  455 

John's  "fellow-disciples  and  bishops"  in  the  same  way  that 
it  attributes  the  Book  of  Wisdom  to  "the  friends  of  Solo- 
mon." The  question  of  the  external  evidence  resolves  itself 
into  that  of  the  internal:  Is  the  writer  of  21 :  24  in  personal 
contact  with  the  princij)al  author,  or  not?  One  factor  in 
the  determination  of  this  question  is  that  of  date;  and  to  this 
we  have  already  given  consideration,  and  must  give  more  in 
connection  with  tliat  of  literary  structure.  Meantime  we 
have  another  means  of  judging  in  his  divergence  from  the 
author's  standpoint,  and  his  misunderstanding  and  occa- 
sional maltreatment  of  the  material. 

If  indeed  it  could  be  maintained  that  no  one  could  hon- 
estly say  "We  know  that  his  witness  is  true"  who  had  not 
personal  acquaintance  with  the  author,  our  difference  with 
R  might  be  held  to  imp])-  an  unfa\'orable  moral  judgment. 
But  who  can  thus  argue  concerning  one  of  the  constant  re- 
frains of  the  Johannine  writings,^  not  to  say  one  of  the  most 
fundamental  ideas  of  the  New  Testament,  the  "witness  of  the 
Spirit  with  our  spirit  that  we  are  born  of  God,"  the  assurance 
of  the  fulfilment  of  the  IMessianic  promise  in  the  outpouring 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  upon  every  one  that  is  baptized  into  Christ. 
The  truth  witnessed  by  the  Gospel  is  in  substance  that 

"the  Son  of  God  is  come  and  hath  given  us  an  understanding 
so  that  we  know  Him  that  is  true  and  are  in  Him  that  is  true  in 
his  Son  Jesus  Christ."  " 

W'here  is  there  a  true  Christian  who  cannot  say  of  this  "We 
know  that  this  witness  is  true"  ? 

But  certain  passages  anterior  to  the  Appendix  are  also 
supposed  to  make  direct  claims  to  emanate  from  an  eye- 
witness. To  dispute  these  would  in  that  case  imply  an  im- 
putation of  insincerity  to  the  author.  Here  then  the  c^uestion 
becomes  again  a  question  of  exegesis. 

1  E.  g.,  Ill  Jn.  12;  I  Jn.  5:  9-12;  Jn.  3:  11. 

2  1  Jn.  5:20. 


456  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Among  the  "passages  which  make  a  direct  claim,"  Pro- 
fessor Sanday  cites  first  of  all  I  Jn.  i :  1-3,  the  reliance  of  the 
Muratorianiim,^  a  passage  which  we  also  attribute  to  the 
author  (not  the  redactor)  of  the  Gospel.  Sanday  disposes 
quickly  and  correctly  of  the  interpretation  of  the  reference 
of  OeaaOai  to  mystical  vision.  Certainly  Theologos  em- 
phasizes the  visibility  and  tangibility  of  the  incarnation  of 
the  Logos,  just  as  in  Jn.  i:  13,  14,  16,'  and  20:  24-31.  We 
have  every  reason  for  accepting  the  ancient  belief  that  the 
author  is  vindicating  the  historic  tradition  of  the  Church 
against  the  docetism  of  Cerinthus,  Cj.  I  Jn.  4:2,  3,  and 
5 :  6-10. 

Against  the  alternative  view  that  the  writer  "is  speaking 
in  the  name  of  a  whole  generation,  or  of  Christians  gen- 
erally," the  only  objection  raised  is  the  "contrast  between 
'we'  and  'you,'  between  teachers  and  taught."  Here  also 
we  admit  the  contention  (if  anybody  disputes  it)  that 

"the  teachers  are  in  any  case  a  small  body;  and  they  seem  to 
rest  their  authority,  or  at  least  the  impulse  to  teach,  on  the  desire 
to  communicate  to  others  what  they  had  themselves  experienced." 

Precisely;  for  they  are  genuine  successors  of  the  Apostle  Paul 
in  the  great  headquarters  of  his  mission  field,  and  therefore 
they  speak  with  the  authority  of  those  who  have  been  "in- 
trusted with  the  ministry  of  reconciliation,  how  that  God 

1  "That  which  was  from  the  beginning,  that  which  we  have  heard,  that 
which  we  have  seen  with  our  eyes,  that  which  we  beheld,  and  our  hands 
handled,  concerning  the  Word  of  Hfe  (and  the  life  was  manifested  and  we 
have  seen  and  bear  witness,  and  declare  unto  you  the  life,  the  eternal  life 
which  was  with  the  Father,  and  was  manifested  unto  us);  that  which  we 
have  seen  and  heard,  declare  we  unto  you  also,  that  ye  also  may  have  fellow- 
ship with  us;  yea,  and  our  fellowship  is  with  the  Father,  and  with  his  Son 
Jesus  Christ,  and  these  things  we  write  that  our  joy  may  be  fulfilled." 

2  See  the  passage  reproduced  below  (p.  458).  As  an  illustration  of  the 
infelicitous  interpolations  of  R,  we  have  printed  also  (in  other  type)  verse  15, 
to  show  how  it  interrupts  the  connection  of  14  with  16,  and  refers  to  an 
utterance  of  which  we  hear  nothing  down  to  verse  30. 


DEFENSE  OF  THE  GOSPEL  457 

was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world."  Because  they  are  the 
conscious  successors  of  this  A])Oslle  of  the  present,  spiritual 
Christ,  they  emphasize  and  reiterate  to  the  last  degree  that  it 
is  "the  life,"  the  life  of  the  Logos,  the  life  which  was  from 
the  beginning,  the  life  which  was  historically  manifested  and 
which  since  that  manifestation,  to  which  the  writer  and  his 
associates  have  been  ordained  and  set  apart  to  bear  witness, 
has  been  the  continual,  conscious  possession  of  the  whole 
brotherhood  of  believers,  constituting  their  fellowship,  the  hfe 
which  flows  from  God,  the  life  that  so  constitutes  the  being 
of  the  Christian  that  it  is  no  more  he  that  lives  but  Christ  that 
liveth  in  him.  The  teachers  are  a  small  body — not  because 
nobody  can  teach  except  those  whose  physical  hands  touched 
the  incarnate  Logos,^  but  because  so  few  have  come  into 
living,  conscious  contact  with  the  spiritual  Logos.  Its  lines 
of  limitation  do  not  run  across  the  generations  at  so  many 
years  after  the  crucifixion,  but  along  all  generations  accord- 
ing as  men  receive  or  reject  the  Spirit.  The  author  uses  the 
same  "we"  to  speak  through  the  mouth  of  Jesus  himself  in 
Jn.  3:  II.-  The  witness  is  historical  in  its  source,  but  per- 
sonal and  immediate  in  its  verification.  The  record  is  con- 
firmed by  the  experience;  and  the  exi^erience  therefore  makes 
subsequent  generations  fellow-witnesses  with  the  first.  Ac- 
cording to  Theologos  there  is  no  need  for  Christians  to  be 
disputing  about  the  length  of  hfe  of  this  "witness  of  Mes- 
siah" or  that.  With  Paul  he  holds  that  it  is  not  physical 
but  spiritual  contact  which  gives  apostolic  authority.  The 
Logos  is  with  them  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world. 
Because  his  Ufe  is  in  them,  they  are  his  witnesses,  that  shall 
not  taste  of  death  till  his  parousia. 

1  This  is  the  plane  to  which  Theologos  relegates  the  doubting  Thomas. 
Cf.  Jn.  20:  26-29. 

2  "We  speak  that  we  do  know  and  testify  that  we  have  seen"  is  the  utter- 
ance of  the  Church,  conscious  of  having  received  the  promised  Spirit,  to 
unbelieving  Judaism. 


4S8  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

"Hereby  we  know  that  we  abide  in  him  and  he  in  us,  because 
he  hath  given  us  of  his  Spirit.  And  we  have  beheld  and  bear 
witness  that  the  Father  hath  sent  the  Son  to  be  the  Saviour  of  the 
world.  .  .  .  This  is  he  that  came  by  water  and  blood,  even 
Jesus  Christ;  not  with  water  (of  baptism)  only  (as  the  Docetists 
held),  but  with  the  water  and  with  the  blood  (of  the  passion; 
denied  by  the  Docetists).  And  it  is  the  Spirit  that  beareth  wit- 
ness, because  the  Spirit  is  the  truth.  ...  If  we  receive  the 
witness  of  men,  the  witness  of  God  is  greater.  ...  He  that 
believeth  on  the  Son  of  God  hath  the  witness  in  him.  .  .  . 
And  the  witness  is  this,  that  God  gave  unto  us  eternal  life,  and 
this  hfe  is  in  His  Son.  He  that  hath  the  Son  hath  the  life.  He 
that  hath  not  the  Son  of  God  hath  not  the  life." 

This  is  the  "witness."  To  talk  as  if  it  were  something 
which  none  but  the  first  generation  can  render,  with  mere 
tales  about  their  experiences  of  the  physical  senses,  is  to 
force  upon  the  writer  as  his  only  meaning  "the  witness  of 
men,"  when  he  insists  upon  testifying  by  "the  witness  of 
God  which  is  greater."  This  apostolic  succession  he  belongs 
to,  and  he  seeks  to  extend  it.  We  still  have  few  enough  such 
teachers. 

If  the  nature  of  the  original  author's  "witness"  is  clear 
from  the  Epistle  alone,  it  becomes  ten  times  more  clear  when 
we  bring  into  comparison  the  next  of  Professor  Sanday's 
"passages  which  make  a  direct  claim,"  Jn.  i :  14,  though  this 
he  regards  as  "more  ambiguous." 

It  forms  part  of  a  context  (Jn.  i:  11-17),  in  which,  as  so 
constantly  in  Paul,  the  spiritual  Israel,  "which  were  born 
not  of  blood,  nor  of  the  will  of  the  flesh,  nor  of  the  will  of 
man,  but  of  God"  (r/.  Gal.  4:  22-31;  Rom.  4:  16-18;  9:  7-9), 
are  contrasted  with  the  fleshly,  "the  Jews,"  as  they  are 
designated  in  this  Gospel. 

"  He  came  unto  his  own,  and  his  own  received  him  not.  ^^.  But 
as  many  as  received  him  to  them  gave  he  the  right  to  become 


DEFENSE  OF  THE  GOSPEL  459 

children  of  GocL  .  .  .  ^-^  And  the  Logos  became  flesh, 
and  tabernacled  among  us,  and  we  beheld  his  glory,  glory  as  of 
the  Only-begotten  from  the  Father,  full  of  grace  and  truth. 
15  John  bcarcth  witness  of  liim  and  crielh,  saying,  This  was  he  of  whom  I 
said,  He  that  conieth  after  me  is  become  before  mc,  for  he  was  before  me.i 
^*  For  of  his  fulness  (of  grace  and  truth)  we  all  received,  and 
grace  for  grace.  For  the  law  was  given  by  Moses.  Grace  and 
truth  came  by  Jesus  Christ." 

Does  the  author  mean  by  "tabernacled  among  us,"  us 
twelve  Apostles;  or  does  he  means  us,  the  spiritual  Israel, 
who  "received  him"?'  When  he  says,  "We  beheld  his 
glory  full  of  grace  and  truth,  jor  we  all  received  from  his 
fulness  of  grace,"  does  he  mean  to  exclude  from  this  ex- 
perience all  but  the  first  generation?  If  so,  the  ubiquitous 
signs  of  his  relationship  to  Paul  are  very  fallacious.  But 
such  an  interpretation  w'ould  be  belittUng  to  the  Gospel. 

Professor  Sanday  has  but  one  more  "passage  wdiich  makes 
a  direct  claim."  It  is  the  famous  crux  of  interpretation, 
19:35,^  and  as  to  it  Professor  Sanday  himself,  as  we  have 
seen  (p.  192),  is  fain  to  admit  that  if  we  accept  the  ordinary 
use  of  eKeivo<i  (and  he  suggests  no  other), 

"  then  I  should  be  inclined  to  think  with  Zahn  that  cxeivos  points 
to  Christ,  '  he  who  saw  the  sight  has  set  it  down  in  writing  .  .  , 
and  there  is  One  above  who  knows  that  he  is  teUing  the  truth.'  " 

But  who  that  was  anxious  to  establish  a  historical  fact 
would  write  in  this  ambiguous  fashion  ?  And  what  then 
becomes  of  the  "direct  claim"?  Manifestly  it  remains  to 
be  proved 

1  Verse  15  is  borrowed  carelessly  from  verse  30,  after  the  original  report 
had  been  cut  out.     See  above,  p.  456,  note  2. 

2C/.  Ex.  33:55.;  40:34  f. 

3  "There  came  out  (from  the  spear  wound)  blood  and  water.  And  he 
that  hath  seen  hath  borne  witness,  and  his  witness  is  true.  And  he  knoweth 
that  he  saith  true  that  ye  may  believe." 


46o  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

"that  the  bearing  witness  is  that  of  the  written  Gospel,  and  that 
the  author  of  the  Gospel  is  the  same  as  he  who  saw  the  sight." 
Professor  Sanday's  only  "proof"  is  a  reference  to  21:24, 
and  we  are  (seemingly)  back  where  we  were  before. 

However,  we  are  not  quite  where  we  were  before,  for 
Professor  Sanday  refuses  to  relinquish  the  favorite  among 
"defenders"  of  all  the  "passages  which  make  a  direct 
claim."     He  cannot 

"agree  that  there  is  anything  really  untenable  in  what  may  be 
called  the  common  view,  that  .  .  .  the  author  is  simply 
turning  back  upon  himself  and  protesting  his  own  veracity.  The 
use  of  cKcTvos  to  take  up  the  subject  of  a  sentence  is  specially 
frequent  and  specially  characteristic  of  this  Gospel;  and  as  the 
author  systematically  speaks  of  himself  in  the  third  person,  it  seems 
to  me  that  the  word  may  also  naturally  refer  to  himself  so  ob- 
jectified: 'he  who  saw  the  sight  has  set  it  down  .  .  .  and 
he  is  well  assured  that  what  he  says  is  true.'  "  ^ 

In  the  above  extract  we  have  taken  the  liberty  to  itaHcize 
a  clause  which  to  us  appears  simply  a  begging  of  the  ques- 
tion in  debate.  The  usual  example  cited  by  those  who  main- 
tain this  alleged  self -objectifying  use  of  eVeZi^o?  by  the 
evangeHst  is  Jn.  9:  37,  "He  that  speaketh  unto  thee  is  that 
one"  (e/ceiw9,  /,  e.,  the  one  assumed  to  he  another).^  In  the 
absence  of  any  real  parallel  Professor  Sanday's  statement 
should  read  "i/  the  author  speaks  of  himself  in  the  third 
person."  The  assumption  that  he  does  certainly  calls  for 
some  proof.    But  let  us  continue: — 

"In  any  case,  however,  I  must  needs  think  that  the  bearing 
witness  (Jn.  19:35)  is  that  of  the  written  Gospel,  and  that  the 
author  of  the  Gospel  is  the  same  as  he  who  saw  the  sight.  The 
identity  is,  it  seems  to  me,  clenched  by  21 :  24." 

1  Criticism,  p.  79. 

2  To  show  the  absurdity  of  adducing  this  as  a  parallel  let  the  question  be 
asked,  What  effect  would  result  from  the  opposite  procedure:  "He  that 
speaketh  unto  thee  is  myself"  ? 


DEFENSE  OF  THE  GOSPEL  461 

Once  more  we  italicize  the  clause  which  seems  to  us  to 
beg  the  question  in  dispute.  With  all  the  rest  we  emphati- 
cally concur,  with  the  further  addition  of  I  Jn.  5 :  6-8  as 
part  of  the  witness  borne  ])y  the  author  in  (juestion.  We  too 
feel  that  this  sense  is  "clenched"  by  21 :  24.  We  even  agree 
to  the  italicized  clause — if  the  meaning  be  that  such  was  the 
opinion  of  tlic  author  oj  ilic  verse,  and  are  not  compelled  to 
make  it  our  own. 

But  why  has  Professor  Sanday  paid  no  heed  to  the  warn- 
ing of  one  of  the  most  eminent  scholars  of  our  time  in  the 
field  of  New  Testament  philology  and  textual  criticism,  and 
one  of  the  most  conscnative  on  questions  of  authorshii)  and 
date?  In  1902  Friedrich  Blass  had  ])ublished  a  minute  and 
scholarly  investigation  of  the  textual  evidences  for  "Jn. 
19:  35."  ^    Its  conclusion  is  as  follows: — 

"What  then  shall  the  textual  critic  do?  I  fear  there  remains 
to  him  but  a  single  possibility,  to  let  the  ordinary  text  (of  19:  35) 
stand  as  it  is.  But  he  should  not  permit  himself  as  he  values  his 
life  (bei  Leibe  nicht)  to  believe  in  the  eorreetness  of  this  text;  it 
would  be  unscientific.  Everything  in  it  is  uncertain:  the  whole 
thirty-fifth  verse  and  its  position,  as  well  as  its  individual  parts, 
except  the  first,  and  more  especially  the  cKetvos  olhtv.  Finally, 
even  if  we  could  find  firm  ground  for  this,  we  should  still  be  en- 
tangled with  the  EKtivos  and  engaged  in  the  old  controversy 
waged  40  years  ago  in  this  Journal  (Th.  St.  ti.  Kr.)  between 
Steitz  and  Buttmann.  It  ought  therefore  to  be  clear,  and  more 
than  clear:  Whoever  hereafter  attempts  to  build  a  theory  of  the 
origin  of  this  Gospel  upon  this  verse,  will  have  built  upon  sand — 
yes,  upon  quicksand — and  there  will  be  need  of  no  tempest  and 
no  torrent  to  bring  about  the  collapse  of  his  structure." 

Blass'  evidence  is  convincing  that  19:35  "belongs  in  the 
margin."    In  other  words,  its  omission  by  some  authorities,^ 

1  In  Theol.  Studien  u.  Kritiken,  75  (1902),  pp.  128-133. 

2  Palatinus  (c)  and  Fuldensis  of  Vlg.  omit  the  whole,  Nonnus  part 


462  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

different  position  in  others/  different  wording,  particularly 
as  regards  iKelvo<i  olSev  (var.  oiSa/xev^  oXhare^  olha)  in  still 
others  proves  it  an  early  marginal  gloss  of  editorial  char- 
acter. Blass  very  naturally,  and  most  irrefutably,  brings  it 
into  connection,  as  we  have  done,  with  I  Jn.  5:  6-8,  "which 
of  course  does  not  really  refer  to  the  incident  (of  the  cruci- 
fixion) here  related."  What  he  has  left  undone,  but  fortu- 
nately had  been  made  unnecessary  by  the  clear  assurances 
of  "defenders"  such  as  Lightfoot  and  Sanday,  is  the  demon- 
stration of  the  close  relation  of  this  editorial  gloss — proved 
such  by  even  the  textual  evidence — with  the  Appendix;  in 
particular  with  21:  24,  which  also  uses  the  same  expressions 
borrowed  from  the  Epilogue  of  the  Three  Epistles,  and  also 
identifies  "that  witness"  with  the  Beloved  Disciple  and  the 
author  of  the  Gospel  as  well.  It  is  true  that  for  reasons 
already  explained  we  still  have  little  or  no  textual  evidence 
for  the  circulation  of  the  Gospel  without  the  Appendix, ^ 
We  are  not,  however,  altogether  without  evidence  of  its 
circulation  without  the  post-postscript  (21:  25)  and  the  same 
process  of  tinkering  at  the  passages  bearing  on  the  author- 
ship of  the  Beloved  Disciple  which  is  evidenced  in  21:  25  is 
evidenced  also,  as  Blass  has  shown,  in  19:  31-37. 

Review  of  the  passages  supposed  to  "make  a  direct  claim" 
of  Johannine  authorship  has  involved,  through  the  depend- 
ence of  "defenders"  on  passages  demonstrably  foreign  to  the 
Gospel  in  its  original  form,  a  certain  commingling  of  the  two 
aspects  of  our  inquiry  (i)  as  to  the  credibihty  of  R,  tested 
by  the  admittedly  authentic  passages;  (2)  as  to  his  own  rela- 
tion on  the  one  side  to  the  "parenthetic  additions,"  on  the 
other  to  the  original  author.  R's  relation  to  some  of  the 
former  has  with  the  aid  of  the  "defenders"  been  already 
sufficiently  proved.    To  what  further  extent  it  can  be  traced 

1  Cyril  of  Alexandria  seems  to  have  had  the  order  34,  36,  37,  35. 

2  See,  however,  above,  p.  213  ff. 


DEFENSE  OF  THE  GOSPEL  463 

is  a  problem  for  the  succeeding  chapter.  There  remains  for 
present  consideration  only  the  rjuestion  of  his  relation  to  the 
author  of  the  Gospel  in  the  form  supplemented  by  the  three 
Epistles. 

2.  If  R,  with  his  editorial  ascription  of  the  Gospel  (and 
Epistles?)  to  the  son  of  Zcbedee,  is  simply  doing  what  the 
writers  of  the  Muratoriamim,  of  the  JMonarchian  Prologues, 
of  the  various  argumenta  and  subscriptions,  habitually  do, 
presenting  as  fact  his  own  inferences  from  the  author  he  is 
handling,  and  if  his  exegctical  inferences,  together  with  the 
whole  dependent  chain  of  alleged  "external  evidence,"  car- 
ries (to  put  it  mildly)  no  conviction,  what  is  the  indirect  evi- 
dence of  the  author  himself?  His  "direct  claims,"  as  we 
have  seen,  are  not  for  himself,  but  for  the  body  of  witnesses 
to  which  he  belongs,  a  body  not  yet  divided  into  a  "Catho- 
lic" camp  which  holds  to  the  historic  succession  by  physical 
contact,  and  a  Protestant  camp  which  declares  "the  Spirit 
and  the  gifts  are  ours  "  and  despises  the  historic  tradition. 
His  witnesses  stand  for  both.  Theologos,  as  we  have  called 
him,  merges  his  owm  testimony  completely  in  that  of  the 
Church.  The  witness  of  the  Spirit  is  everything,  "because 
the  Spirit  is  truth."  The  purest  and  loftiest  Paulinism  is 
reacting  from  the  unbridled  fancy  of  Gnosticism  toward  the 
historic  tradition  of  the  Church,  but  without  the  surrender 
of  PauUne  liberty  in  the  Spirit.  Space  does  not  here  j)ermit 
the  demonstration  how  far  below  this  level  is  that  of  the 
redactor,  who,  by  his  additions  and  readjustments,  par- 
ticularly in  the  Appendix,  has  sought  to  harness  this  eagle 
to  the  wingless  creatures  of  SjTioptic  tradition.  But  we 
certainly  have  no  need  and  no  inclination  to  accuse  him  of 
untruth. 

Many  reasonable  inferences  can  l)c  drawn  from  Gospel 
and  Epistles  concerning  his  personality.     We  have  seen  ^ 

1  Above,  p.  188. 


464  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

that  he  was  probably  an  elderly  man,  a  Hellenistic  Jew  of 
Ei)hesus,  and  that  he  was  famihar  from  personal  observation 
with  the  scenes  along  a  limited  line  of  travel  in  Palestine. 
He  does  not  seem  to  have  been  himself  guilty  of  the  an- 
achronistic reference  to  "the  sea  of  Tiberias";  for  the  ap- 
pending of  Tr]<i  Ti/3e/3taSo9  in  6:1  is  more  likely  on  gram- 
matical grounds  to  be  due  to  R,  who  employs  this  designation 
(21:1).  If  he  was  misled  by  Lk.  3 :  2  and  Asiatic  usage  into 
speaking  of  Caiaphas  as  high-priest  "for  that  year"  (11 :  49- 
52),  he  has  more  than  atoned  for  it  by  correcting  from 
ISIt.  26:  57.  He  knows  the  Scriptures,  and  that  perhaps  in 
the  original  Hebrew.  At  least  he  seems  conversant  with 
more  than  one  Greek  rendering,^  His  mastery  of  midrashic 
method,  especially  that  of  a  "  spirituaUzing "  Alexandrian 
type,  reminds  us  of  an  Apollos,  his  attitude  toward  Stoic 
conceptions  and  to  some  of  the  commonplaces  of  Greek 
philosophy  recall  the  venerable  Ephesian  teacher  of  Justin 
Martyr.  All  reasonable  inferences  of  this  kind  have  value 
in  proportion  as  they  help  us  to  understand  the  author,  his 
task  and  his  times.  Polemically  or  apologetically  employed 
they  are  more  apt  to  be  productive  of  confusion  than  of  light. 
And  after  all  it  is  not  the  individual  traits  of  the  author's 
character  which  we  need  to  know,  so  much  as  those  which 
are  not  distinctive  but  representative;  we  need  to  know  the 
characteristics  of  the  church  and  period  he  represents. 
Jewish  birth  is  not  so  great  a  matter  for  a  Philo  in  Alexan- 
dria, a  Paul  in  Tarsus,  or  a  Spinoza  in  Amsterdam,  as 
ability  to  lay  hold  of  and  master  the  greatest  thoughts  of 
Gentile  philosophy.  All  mere  questions  of  the  precise  in- 
dividual and  date  are  subordinate  to  those  of  real  importance 
to  the  reader  for  whom  the  Scriptures  are  a  record  of  the 
march  of  God  in  history.    WHiat  is  important  for  such  readers 

1  See  Drummond,  op.  cil.,  \>i>.  361-365,  and  Dittmar,  Vetus  Test,  in  Novo, 
ad  I  oca. 


DEFENSE  OF  THE  GOSPEL  465 

is  the  apjircciation  wliich  only  historical  study  can  give  first 
of  all  of  the  evangelist's  relation  to  Paul,  especially  the 
Pauline  Christology  as  revealed  in  the  Asian  group  of  epis- 
tles, above  all  Ephesians.  Next  to  this  must  come  his  rela- 
tion on  the  one  side  to  Mark  and  Luke,  on  the  other  to 
Matthew  and  the  Sayings,  as  representations  of  the  evangelic 
tradition.  And  over  against  these  sources  and  influences 
must  be  set  the  evangelist's  antagonisms  and  emendations. 
The  docetism  of  Cerinthus  and  probably  of  the  Gnostics 
of  Antiochian  origin,  perhaps  the  doctrines  of  Basilidcs  him- 
self, are  certainly  met  and  overthrown.  Ancient  tradition 
coincides  with  the  express  statement  of  the  Epistles  on  this 
point;  modern  criticism  abundantly  confirms  the  fact  by 
comparison  of  llie  contemporary  polemic  of  Ignatius.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  evangelist  is  certainly  conscious  also,  as 
tradition  maintains,  of  the  shortcomings  of  his  predecessors 
on  the  "spiritual"  side.  A  striking  instance,  all  the  more 
curious  from  the  fact  that  his  writings  have  come  to  be  at- 
tributed to  the  same  author  as  Revelation,  a  book  represent- 
ing the  very  opposite  tendency  in  this  field,  is  his  eschatology. 
The  nature  of  the  Christian  hope  for  the  future  was  the 
burning  question  of  the  age.  Scoft'ers  demanded  mockingly 
"Where  is  the  promise  of  his  Coming?"  Gnostic  and 
Docetic  heretics  etherealized  Church  doctrine  into  vague 
nebulosity.  Palestinian  apocalyptic  "prophecy"  material- 
ized it  into  a  concrete,  hard  and  fast  millcnarianism  of  the 
type  represented  by  the  Jerusalem  "Elders"  and  later  by 
Papias  and  the  Montanists.  Paul  had  followed  both  tend- 
encies. In  his  earlier  letters  he  looks  for  the  Coming  of 
Christ  to  us,  while  we  are  alive  and  remain;  in  the  latest  he 
expects  "to  depart  and  be  with  Christ,  which  is  very  far 
better."  The  foundation  which  (Hd  not  change  with  Paul 
vvas  his  conviction  that  our  real  life,  even  now,  is  the  eternal 
life,  of  which  the  indwelling  Spirit  is  the  essence  as  well  as 

Fourth  Gospel — 30 


466  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

pledge,  which  even  now  for  its  center  of  gravity  is  "hid  with 
Christ  in  God,"  Our  evangelist  rests  firmly  on  the  deeper 
truth,  and  follows  it  out  in  the  direction  of  Paul's  later  think- 
ing. All  this  appreciation  of  the  inner  life  of  the  evangelist, 
his  church  and  his  times,  is  more  important  than  his  years  of 
life,  his  ancestry,  or  even — since  in  any  event  he  has  not 
aimed  to  draw  upon  the  resources  of  an  eye-witness — his 
historical  nearness  to  the  times  of  which  he  professes  to 
speak. 

And  R  also  has  his  place  in  the  divine  development, 
though  it  is  far  from  the  lofty  one  we  must  concede  to  A. 
The  accommodation  of  the  "spiritual"  to  the  concrete,  the 
adjustment  of  the  ideal  to  the  practical  is  not  a  sphere  for 
transcendent  genius.  But  labor  of  this  kind  also  deserves 
to  be  understood  and  appreciated.  Can  we  trace  probable 
errors  and  misunderstandings?  Let  him  that  is  without  sin 
among  us  cast  the  first  stone.  But  let  us  not  be  considered 
to  be  stoning  the  prophets  because  we  prefer  understanding 
them,  even  in  their  imperfections,  to  building  their  sepul- 
chers. 

We  have  seen  that  the  Appendix  differs  widely  in  its  point 
of  view  from  the  Gospel,  and  in  the  direction  of  the  con- 
crete and  the  commonplace.  There  is  reversion  toward  the 
Synoptic  type  of  apocalyptic  eschatology  (21:22),  and  re- 
crudescence still  more  marked  in  the  post-postscript  (21 :  25). 
Further  study  of  the  reviser's  work  in  the  body  of  the  Gospel 
may  give  further  light  on  this  relation.^  Meantime  we 
deprecate  the  imputation  of  "destructive"  aims  or  tend- 
encies to  such  investigation.  Discrimination  is  the  first  con- 
dition of  insight.  Undiscriminating  reading  even  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  is  not  to  be  preferred  to  the  application  of  the 
keenest  processes  of  critical  analysis. 

To  one  whose  conception  of  the  beginning  of  Christianity 

1  See  below,  Chapter  XVIII. 


DEFENSE  OF  THE  GOSPEL  467 

is  confined  to  the  soil  of  Palestine  and  the  narrations  of  those 
who  had  known  Christ  after  the  flesh,  light  upon  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Pauline  Gospel  in  Asia  may  perhaps  be  a  matter 
of  small  moment.  The  Pauline  Gospel  is  resolutely  dis- 
regardful  of  the  sayings  and  doings  of  Jesus,  in  favor  of  the 
incarnation,  crucifixion,  and  resurrection  considered  as  a 
drama  of  the  divine  economy  of  creation  and  redemption. 
It  is  the  tendency  of  modern  Christianity,  however,  to  look 
upon  Paul's  great  api)ropriation  of  the  Logos  doctrine,  the 
doctrine  in  which,  from  Heraclitus  of  Ephcsus  to  Cleanthes 
the  Stoic  and  Philo  the  Gnostic,  Greek  monotheistic  philoso- 
phy had  embodied  its  loftiest  interpretation  of  man  and  God 
and  the  Universe,  as  having  also  had  something  to  do  with 
"the  beginning  of  Christianity."  An  extremist  of  the  school 
of  Roman  Catholic  criticism,  to  whom  everything  that  has 
developed  on  the  Christian  stock  is  Christian,  criticizes  the 
principle  of  an  extreme  Lutheran,  who  can  admit  nothing  as 
of  the  essence  of  Christianity  that  cannot  be  traced  back  at 
least  to  the  first  century.  But  these  counteract  one  another. 
The  via  media  of  criticism  lies  between  them.  The  great 
insight  which  criticism  is  giving  to  the  Church  is  the  percep- 
tion of  Christianity  as  a  vital  germ  which  laid  hold  of,  drew 
to  itself  out  of  the  chaos  of  mingled  religions,  philosophies, 
systems,  of  the  first  century,  which  digested,  assimilated, 
organized,  whatever  was  available  for  the  world-reHgion  that 
was  to  be,  because  kindred  to  its  spirit.  This  germ,  so  long 
as  it  retains  its  vitaUty,  must  also  tend  to  throw  off  alien  and 
morbid  growths.  Therefore  modern  thought  sympathizes 
with  the  magnificent  syncretism  of  Paul,  when  he  transforms 
the  national  messianic  hope  of  Israel  into  a  universal  mes- 
sianic hope,  the  second  David  into  a  second  Adam,  the  re- 
demption of  Israel  into  a  redemption  of  the  world;  makes 
the  new  law  of  ministering  love  inclusive  of  all  ethics,  and  all 
politics,  and  the  law  of  the  spirit  of  life  shed  abroad  by  the 


468  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

risen  Redeemer,  making  us  free  from  the  law  of  sin  and 
death  in  our  members,  inchisive  of  all  religion.  The  new 
dynamic,  God  emerging  in  us,  the  lije  that  was  and  is  mani- 
fested, and  the  love  which  is  the  law  of  its  manifestation, 
this  is  to  Paul  the  Essence  of  Christianity.  "This  only 
would  I  know  from  you,  received  ye  the  Spirit?"  The  idea 
of  the  Israel  of  God  which  is  to  be  heir  of  the  world  is  recast 
by  him  in  the  mold  of  Stoic  thought.  It  becomes  the  body 
of  those  who  died  with  Christ  unto  sin,  were  buried  with  him 
in  baptism,  and  were  raised  to  their  new  life  by  the  Spirit, 
which  vitalizes  the  whole  as  the  blood  flows  from  the  head 
through  all  the  members.  When  a  man  so  conceives  the 
Gospel,  not  the  "word  of  wisdom"  of  Jesus  himself,  not  the 
mighty  works  of  a  faith  that  could  move  mountains  will  be 
the  main  thing;  but  the  drama  of  the  Redemption  of  hu- 
manity considered  as  a  manifestation  of  the  hfe  and  the  love 
of  God.  It  will  be  a  message  of  reconciliation,  how  that 
God  was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world.  This  is  the  ever- 
lasting gospel  of  the  Gentiles,  and  it  will  stand  forever  along- 
side the  gospel  of  the  circumcision  as  it  always  has  stood, 
an  interpretation  of  the  significance  of  Christ's  person  and 
work,  just  as  essential  to  Christianity  as  the  report  of  his 
sayings  and  his  deeds. 

It  is  this  gospel  of  the  person  of  Christ  which  comes  to  its 
full  expression  in  Ephesus,  the  great  metropolis  of  the 
Pauline  mission  field.  But  records  fail  us  after  the  time 
when  Paul  "by  the  space  of  three  years"  taught  the  word 
in  Ephesus,  reasoning  daily  in  the  school  of  one  Tyrannus, 
struggling  to  make  the  most  of  his  "great  door  and  effectual" 
against  the  "many  adversaries,"  the  time  when  he  assembled 
the  elders  of  his  Ephesian  churches  (was  Theologos  among 
them  ?)  for  a  last  warning  and  farewell  at  Miletus,  the  time 
when  he  sent  to  "the  Churches  of  Asia"  the  twin  epistles 
"concerning  Christ  and  the  Church"  with  their  sublime 


DEFENSE  OF  THE  OOSPEL  469 

Christology,  the  lime  of  the  Pastoral  Epistles  with  their  in- 
creasing emphasis  on  "the  sound  doctrine,"  the  "form  of 
sound  words"  against  a  gnosis  that  is  falsely  so  called.  Be- 
tween this  time,  into  whose  struggles  of  germinant  Christology 
with  all  the  theosophy  wherewith  that  Phrygian-Ionic  soil 
teemed  and  luxuriated,  the  New  Testament  itself  affords  us 
ghmpse  upon  glimpse,  and  the  later  time,  half  revealed  to  us 
in  the  letters  of  Polycarp  and  Ignatius,  there  is  a  period  of 
darkness  in  which  Paulinism  seems  to  bear  fruit  only  in  the 
great  anonymous  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  that  on  distant 
soil.  At  its  close  the  old  conflict  is  still  raging.  The  an- 
tagonists are  still  those  who  are  puffed  up  in  their  j)roud 
gnosis,  forgetful  of  the  love  that  builds  up.  The  Apostolic 
authority  ap})ealed  to  by  name  is  still  Paul,  and  only  Paul. 
But  now  the  issue  is  more  definite,  the  heresy  is  more  clearly 
defined.  Opposed  to  it  is  a  Logos  doctrine,  strong  and  crude 
in  Ignatius,  more  refined  and  philosophic  in  Justin.  But 
most  significant  for  our  particular  study  is  the  increasing 
appreciation  of  the  weapons  to  which  Polycarj)  urges  re- 
course, on  which  Papias  at  length  lays  hold. 

"  For  everyone  who  shall  not  confess  that  Jesus  Christ  is  come 
in  the  flesh  is  anti-Christ;  and  whosoever  shall  not  confess  the 
testimony  of  the  Cross  is  of  the  devil;  and  whosoever  shall  pervert 
the  logia  of  the  Lord  to  his  own  lusts,  and  say  that  there  is  neither 
resurrection  nor  judgment,  that  man  is  the  firstborn  of  Satan. 
\\'herefore  let  us  forsake  the  vain  talk  of  the  many  and  the  false 
doctrines,  and  turn  to  the  word  handed  down  to  us  from  the  be- 
ginning." ^ 

It  surely  is  not  hard  to  see  what  literature  has  intervened 
here  with  its  new  interj)retation  of  the  old  doctrine  of  the 
anti-Christ,  the  false  witness  that  exaltcth  himself  against 
the  true  witness  of  the  Church.  Nor  is  it  difik-ult  to  recog- 
nize the  antagonists  against  whom  "Papias  and  so  many 

1  Ep.  0/  Polycarp,  vii. 


470  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

church  fathers  after  him  ...  as,  for  instance,  Ire- 
naeus,"  and  Justin,  and  Jude,  and  II  Peter,  advanced  the 
Apocalypse  of  John,  Papias  and  Justin  are  the  first  to  bring 
in  the  authority  of  "John  the  Apostle"  in  favor  of  (a  physi- 
cal) "resurrection  and  (an  apocalyptic)  judgment,"  Papias, 
in  addition,  bringing  that  of  "the  Elder  John."  For  their 
Logos  doctrine  neither  Ignatius  nor  Justin  have  any  au- 
thority to  cite  save  Paul.  But  in  respect  to  c^uestions  about 
"the  form  of  sound  words,  even  the  words  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,"  against  those  who  are  "puffed  up  with  a 
doting  gnosis,^'  ^  there  is  a  new  development. 

The  new  feature  is  the  turning  toward  "the  Apostles  and 
Elders"  for  "the  word  handed  down  from  the  beginning,  the 
logia  of  the  Lord,"  which  are  being  perverted  by  those  who 
do  not  accept  the  witness  of  the  cross.-  Papias  follows  this 
advice,  turning  from  the  "vain  talk  of  the  many"  to  "those 
who  teach  the  truth,  and  from  the  false  doctrine  of  those 
who  relate  ahen  'commandments'  to  those  who  relate  com- 
mandments given  from  the  Lord  to  the  Faith."  Against  the 
twenty-four  books  of  Basilides'  Exegetica  on  the  Antiochian 
Gospel  appear  five  books  of  Exegesis  of  the  Lord's  logia, 
based  on  the  testimony  of  apostles  and  elders.  The  test  of 
trustworthiness  is  now  the  historic  tradition  derived  from  an 
apostoHc  group.^  Historical  criticism  has  begun.  Even  the 
metropoHs  of  the  Pauhne  mission  field  is  beginning  to  listen 
for  the  voice  of  ecclesiastical  authority.  Soon  it  will  be  im- 
possible for  even  the  very  embodiment  of  the  gospel  of  Paul 
to  find  standing  save  as  accommodated  to  Petrine  tradition, 

1 1  Tim.  6:  3. 

2C/.  I  Jn.  5:6-9. 

3  As  to  whether  this  apostolic  group  is  to  be  found  at  Jerusalem,  where 
Luke  places  it,  where  all  authorities  seek  it  down  to  Irenaeus,  down  to  a 
time  when  not  merely  the  Church  of  "the  apostles  and  elders"  had  been 
scattered  by  Hadrian,  but  Ephesus  and  Rome  had  divided  its  inheritance 
and  forgotten  its  distinction,  see  alcove.  Chapter  IV. 


DEFENSE  OF  THE  GOSPEL  471 

even  in  dialogues  misunderstood  as  literal  reports  of  actual 
inten-iews  with  Jesus. 

The  significance  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  lies  in  its  testimony 
to  the  growth  and  self-defmition  of  the  gospel  of  Paul  in  the 
heart  of  the  church  of  the  uncircumcision,  l^efore  the  harking 
back  to  Jerusalem.  When  we  are  al^le  to  trace  the  history 
of  "the  Churches  of  Asia"  from  the  time  when  Paul  con- 
veys their  greetings  to  Corinth  down  to  the  annihilation  of 
the  church  of  "the  ai)Ostles  and  elders"  in  the  war  against 
Hadrian,  and  the  transfer  to  Rome  under  Antoninus  Pius 
of  the  leading  minds  in  the  great  school  of  Ephcsus,  then  we 
may  realize  against  the  background  of  that  history  that  it  is 
not  all  enhancement  of  "the  value  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  as  a 
record  of  the  beginning  of  Christianity"  to  wrest  it  out  of 
its  true  setting,  and  attempt  to  change  its  witness  to  "the 
life  which  was  with  the  Father  and  was  manifested  unto  us" 
into  an  admittedly  defective,  unhistorical,  and  fictitious  sup- 
plement to  Synoptic  tradition. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE   ANALYTICAL    SCHOOL   OF    CRITICISM 

On  several  occasions  the  course  of  our  discussion  has  com- 
pelled us  to  anticipate  in  some  degree  the  question  of  the 
integrity  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  i.  e.,  its  persistence  in  its 
original  form.  In  fact  we  have  found  it  a  matter  of  general 
agreement,  conceded  by  the  most  strenuous  "defenders" 
that  the  Appendix  (ch.  21)  is  "an  afterthought"  and  that 
the  last  two  verses,  if  not  more,  are  from  a  hand  distinguish- 
able from  that  of  the  evangelist.^  The  last  verse  of  all  (21 :  25) 
is  even  textually  doubtful  and  is  justly  omitted  in  the  critical 
text  of  Tischendcrf.  How  far  back  into  the  body  of  the 
Gospel  will  this  process  of  disintegration  extend?  Great 
effort  has  been  made  and  is  still  exerted  by  "defenders"  to 
prove  the  inseparableness  of  19:  35,  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant of  the  "parenthetic  additions"  noted  by  Lightfoot, 
from  21 :  24.  And  for  the  latter,  as  we  have  seen,  only  an  in- 
direct relation  is  claimed  with  the  original  writer.  But  Blass 
has  proved  that  19:35  is  at  least  as  subject  to  textual  sus- 
picion as  21 :  25.  What  then  of  the  other  "parenthetic  addi- 
tions"? \Vhat  of  the  passages  which  display  internal  con- 
nection with  the  Appendix,  such  as  12:33,  '^^'hich  Lightfoot 
says  must  be  from  the  same  hand  as  21:19?^     \Vhat  of 

1  Cf.  Sanday,  Criticism,  p.  8i.  "At  the  very  end  another  hand  does  take 
up  the  pen." 

2  Bibl.  Essays,  p.  194.  Scholten  (Ev.  n.  Joh.,  p.  67)  reverses  this  reason- 
ing. "If  ch.  21  comes  from  a  later  hand,  does  not  21:  19  prove  that  the  sup- 
plementer  has  also  added  12:  33  and  18:  32  to  the  original  text?"  Whether 
these  mere  explanatory  comments  ("He  said  this  indicating  by  what  manner 
of  death  he  should  die")  are  additions  by  R,  or  R  has  merely  imitated  them 
in  21:  19  is  a  question  of  no  vital  significance. 

472 


THE  ANALYTICAL  SCHOOL  473 

13:36-38;  18: 15-18,  25-27,  a  group  of  passages  intimately 
related  in  subject-matter  to  21 :  15-19?  Shall  we  admit  with 
Drummond  that : 

"Chapter  21  seems  to  show  that  the  book  underwent  some 
kind  of  editing  before  it  was  given  to  the  public," 

and  that  the  process  may  have  extended  to  the  body  of  the 
work;  ^  or  shall  we  take  our  stand  with  "defenders"  who 
resist  at  all  hazards  every  suggestion  of  revision  or  editorial 
change  ? 

Besides  its  "parenthetic  additions"  and_  passages  related 
to  the  "afterthought,"  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  notoriously  full 
of  the  gaps  and  seams,  the  logical  discrepancies  and  incon- 
sistencies which,  if  not  due  to  an  extraordinary  degree  of 
carelessness  on  the  part  of  the  evangelist,  can  only  be  ex- 
plained as  we  explain  them  in  other  writings  of  the  kind. 
They  must  be  due  to  later  intervention,  whether  by  combina- 
tion with  parallel  documents,  or  by  editorial  revision,  supple- 
mentation or  readjustment.  As  a  matter  of  mere  text  Blass 
has  thus  described  the  case : 

"  This  too  (inversion  of  the  order  of  clauses  or  paragraphs)  seems 
to  be  a  special  feature  in  the  textual  condition  of  John;  careless- 
ness in  copying,  and  the  leaving  out  of  sentences,  which  were 
afterwards  supplied  in  the  margin,  and  from  thence  came  again 
into  the  text,  but  at  a  wrong  place,  may  have  been  the  early 
causes  of  this  damage.  It  seems  to  have  taken  place  now  and 
then  even  on  a  larger  scale:  Prof/H.  Wendt  ^  has  proposed  a 
highly  probable  conjecture  on  7:  15-24,  which  he  removes  from 
their  present  place,  putting  them  at  the  end  of  chapter  5."  ^ 

As  regards  the  "early  causes  of  this  damage"  we  must  dcp- 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  407. 

2  H.  Wendt,  Die  Lehre  Jesu,  i,  22.S  ff.;  cf.  also  Bertling,  in  Studien  u. 
Kritiken,  1880,  351  fT.  (before  Wendl),  and  F.  Sijitta,  Ziir  Gesch.  11.  Liller. 
des  Urchristentliiims,  199  ff. 

'^Philology  of  the  Gospels,  1898,  p.  239.  On  Uiis  special  question  of  the 
displacements  of  John  see  Chapter  XIX. 


474 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 


recate  Blass'  suggestion  of  a  textual  occasion,  remembering 
the  disposition  of  experts  in  textual  criticism  who  are  far 
from  such  in  the  higher,  and  naturally  prefer  to  account  for 
the  peculiarities  of  a  document  by  the  vicissitudes  of  its 
transmission  rather  than  of  its  composition.  Blass'  attempts 
to  explain  phenomena  of  this  kind  have  not  met  with  marked 
success.  His  testimony  as  to  the  fact,  however,  is  of  no 
small  importance.  Notoriously  the  "seamless  robe"  has 
proved  sufficiently  loose  in  texture  to  admit  a  very  consider- 
able addition  in  Jn.  7:53-8:11,  probably  borrowed  from 
the  Ev.  Hebr}  The  textual  evidence  by  itself  alone  may  have 
further  indications  of  significant  modifications  in  process  of 
transmission.  At  all  events  we  must  connect  with  Blass' 
testimony  the  evidences  of  gaps  we  have  already  noted  in 
1 :  35-51  ^  and  5 :  2-7.^  In  the  former  passage  we  are  simply 
left  in  the  dark,  both  as  regards  the  movements  of  the  second 
of  the  two  disciples  of  John,  and  as  regards  the  incident 
"under  the  fig-tree"  referred  to  in  i :  50.'*  In  the  latter  pas- 
sage (5:  2-7)  a  friendly  hand  has  kindly  supplied  in  the  later 
MSS.  after  verse  3  the  words : 

"waiting  for  the  moving  of  the  water:  for  an  angel  of  the  Lord 
went  down  at  certain  seasons  into  the  pool,  and  troubled  the 
water.  Whosoever  then  first  after  the  troubling  of  the  water 
stepped  in  was  made  whole,  with  whatsoever  disease  he  was 
holden." 

Some  explanation  of  this  kind  is  indispensable,  for  without 
it  the  genuine  passage  in  verse  7  is  unintelligible: 

1  This  passage  is  so  universally  recognized  as  unauthentic  as  to  need  no 
argument.  Eusebius  found  the  story  in  Ev.  Hebr.  Papias  had  employed  it. 
His  "Elders"  read  Aramaic. 

2  Above,  pp.  201  fif. 

3  Above,  p.  219,  note. 

*  Note  also  the  absence  of  the  Baptist's  saying  referred  to  in  i:  15,  a  pas- 
sage discussed  below. 


THE  ANALYTICAL  SCHOOL  475 

"Sir,  I  have  no  man  when  the  water  is  troul)le(l  to  put  me  into 
the  pool:  but  while  I  am  coming  another  steppeth  down  before 
me." 

The  gloss  above  cited,  accordingly,  which  our  R.  V.  rele- 
gates to  the  margin,  is  more  properly  a  reinstatement  than  an 
interpolation,  though  the  phraseology  may  be  that  of  the 
glossator  only.'  But  whether  the  transcriber  who  first  sup- 
plied this  missing  explanation  invented  it,  or  found  it  in 
some  related  document  is  immaterial  to  our  present  conten- 
tion. Our  present  contention  is  only  that  the  gap  was  so 
noticeable  in  Jn.  5 :  2-7  (true  text)  as  to  call  forth  interpola- 
tion. 

Now  as  such  gaps,  discrepancies,  dislocations  and  illogical 
connections  are  found  repeatedly  throughout  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  the  attempt  to  account  for  them  by  some  strange 
accident  to  the  text,  after  the  work  had  been  "pubhshed  and 
given  out  to  the  churches,"  is  most  improbable.  The  dam- 
age was  done  before  publication,  or  it  would  not  be  most 
apparent  in  the  best  and  oldest  textual  authorities.^  Con- 
versely it  is  not  really  probable  that  it  was  done  by  the  author 
himself.    Drummond  is  indeed 

"on  the  whole  inclined  to  attribute  the  apparent  displacements 
to  the  original  writer,  who  cared  more  for  the  associations  of 
thought  than  for  the  order  of  chronology,  and  who  might  refer 
back  to  what  he  had  recently  written  without  reflecting  that  the 

1  Sec  Blass'  comment  on  the  phraseolog)^  Philology  of  the  Gospels,  p.  228, 
note  I.  The  reading  of  Nonnus,  which  Blass  wi.:hes  to  consider  as  reflecting 
the  original  (p.  229),  merely  shows  the  same  dislike  of  the  superstition  which 
led  to  R's  cancelation. 

2  Drummond,  op.  cit.,  p.  407,  woukl  prefer  Spitta's  appeal  to  accidental 
misplacement  of  pages  as  an  explanation  of  the  dislocation  of  Johannine 
material  to  that  of  editorial  revision  advocated  by  the  present  writer.  He 
thinks  that  in  connection  with  the  "editing  which  the  book  underwent,"  as 
evidenced  by  the  appending  of  chapter  21,  "it  is  conceivable  that  some  of 
the  author's  sheets  may  have  got  displaced." 


476  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

continuity  of  thought  was  supposed,  historically,  to  be  interrupted 
by  change  of  time  and  scene."  ^ 

For  this  conclusion  Principal  Drummond  is  able  to  cite  no 
less  authority  than  that  of  the  veteran  H.  J.  Holtzmann, 
who  well  deserves  the  title  of  "prince  of  hberal  New  Testa- 
ment scholars,"  and  who  takes  a  similar  attitude  in  his 
article  "  Unordnungen  und  Umo'rdnungen  im  vierten  Evan- 
gelium"  in  the  Zls.  /.  nil.  Wiss.  for  1902.^  But  such  ex- 
planations fail  to  explain.  Tc  go  no  further  than  mere 
balancing  of  authorities,  we  have  that  of  Wellhausen,  whose 
opinion  is  based  on  a  study  and  experience  not  inferior  to 
Holtzmann's,  and  is  completely  opposite  in  effect.  Speaking 
of  those  who  like  Holtzmann  follow  in  the  main  the  idea  of 
Baur  that  "the  key  to  all  chambers  of  this  extraordinary 
structure,  and  the  bond  which  unites  the  whole,  is  the  idea 
which  is  expressed  in  the  discourses  and  shines  through  the 
allegorically  conceived  narrative,"  Wellhausen  writes: 

"Investigators  as  a  rule,  their  eyes  fLxed  on  this  guiding  star 
(Baur's  idea),  give  too  little  heed  to  their  steps.  If  they  do  come 
across  a  flaw  Ln  the  unity,  it  does  not  trouble  them.  If  they  feel 
obliged  to  acknowledge  disturbances  and  contradictions,  they  do 
not  treat  them  as  vestiges  of  literary  construction,  but  append 
them  as  peculiar  traits  of  physiognomy  to  their  portrait  of  the 
author,  which  thereby  becomes  an  incredible  caricature.  An 
author  may  be  careless  and  unskilful,  and  occasionally  even  a 
bit  forgetful;  but  he  must  understand  his  own  intention,  and 
cannot  all  in  a  moment  cease  to  have  any  conception  of  the  bear- 
ing of  his  own  expressions."  ^ 

But  let  us  judge  for  ourselves  regarding  this  distinction  be- 
tween flaws  attributable  to  carelessness,  and  faultings  due  to 
structural  disturbance.     We  have  already  referred  ^  to  the 

1  Op.  cit.,  pp.  407  f. 

2  III,  pp.  50-60. 

3  Das  Evangelium  Johannis,  1908,  pp.  3  f. 

4  Above,  p.  45S. 


THE  ANALYTICAL  SCHOOL  477 

interruption  of  the  connection  of  Jn.  1:14  and  16  caused  by 
the  interjection  of  a  reference  to  John  the  baptist  in  verse  15. 
A  survey  of  the  adjoining  material  here  will  enable  us  to 
draw  some  ])rcliminary  inferences  on  our  own  account. 

In  the  context  (of  Jn.  1:11-18)  the  Christian  revelation 
is  being  contrasted  with  the  Mosaic.  Against  the  carnal 
claims  of  those  who  had  been  "his  own,"  yet  who,  when  the 
Logos  came  to  them  (in  all  the  divine  visitations  of  old  and 
new  dispensations)  ^  received  him  not,  are  set  those  of  the 
spiritual  Israel  who  received  him,  and  who  were  gi\'en  a  true 
and  indefeasible  title  to  real  divine  sonship.  BeUevers  thus 
became  the  sons  of  God  by  faith.  The  Logos  "  tabernacled  "  ^ 
among  them  as  God  had  "tabernacled"  in  the  midst  of  the 
people  redeemed  out  of  Egypt.  Through  the  "tabernacle" 
of  his  flesh  his  followers  saw  his  "glory,"  a  "glory"  from 
God,  full  of  grace  and  truth,  as  in  the  days  of  the  Exodus. 
And  of  this  theophany  surpassing  that  to  Moses  no  doubt 
could  remain,  because  believers  themselves  became  visibly 
partakers  of  the  glory,  Christ's  "fulness  of  grace  and  truth" 
passing  over  into  them.^  Thus  the  Mosaic  revelation  of  law 
was  superseded  by  the  Christian  revelation  of  grace,  bringing 
real  knowledge  of  God  as  our  Father.  The  central  thought 
in  this  context  we  wdll  reproduce  again  just  as  it  stands,  in- 
cluding (in  smaller  type)  the  interjected  addition: 

"  ^"*  And  the  Logos  became  flesh  and  tabernacled  among  us, 
and  we  beheld  his  glory,  glory  as  of  the  Onl}'-bcgottcn  from  the 
Father,  full  of  grace  and  truth;  "*      ^^John  bearcth  witness  of  him  and 

iC/.  Acts?:  51-53. 

2 There  is  a  play  upon  the  Hebrew  mishkan  from  the  root  meaning  "to 
dwell,"  and  an  allusion  to  the  "glory"  which  had  "filled"  the  tabernacle. 
In  the  New  Testament  period  these  conceptions  recur  frequently,  as  in 
Acts  7:  44-50  and  Rev.  21:  3.  The  body  in  particular  is  constantly  spoken 
of  as  a  "tabernacle"  {i.  e.,  of  the  soul),  e.  g.,  II  Cor.  5:  4;  II  Pt.  i:  13,  14. 

3  With  Jn.  i:  14,  16  cf.  II  Cor.  3:  6-18;  Col.  2:  9  f.  and  Ex.  T^y.  17-19. 

4  An  allusion  to  the  privilege  accorded  to  Moses,  Ex.  T^y.  19-34:  6. 


478  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

cricth  saying,  This  was  he  of  whom  I  said  (i:  30),  He  that  cometh  after 
me  is  become  before  me,  for  he  was  before  me;  ^^  for  of  his  fulness 
we  all  received,  and  grace  for  grace." 

Prima  facie  it  does  not  look  probable  that  an  author  writing 
with  even  the  carelessness  (!)  of  the  prologue  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  should  interrupt  himself  after  this  fashion,  or  forget 
(already!)  that  the  saying  of  John  the  Baptist,  a  reference  to 
which  is  here  placed  in  the  Baptist's  own  mouth,  had  not 
yet  been  given,  but  was  later  to  be  reported  in  i :  30.  Add  to 
this  that  the  interjection  of  verse  15  does  not  stand  alone,  but 
has  a  companion  in  verses  6-8,  where  as  Wellhausen  ex- 
presses it  "John  the  Baptist  casually  drops  into  eternity."  ^ 
We  again  reproduce  the  context,  not  paraphrasing  all  of 
verses  1-9,  but  merely  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  they 
deal  throughout  (interpolation  excepted)  with  the  cosmic 
and  eternal  aspect  of  the  redemptive  drama,  not  with  particu- 
lar incidents  of  Jesus'  earthly  career. 

"^  In  him  (the  Logos)  was  life,  and  the  life  was  the  light  of 
men.  ^  And  the  light  shineth  in  the  darkness  and  the  darkness 
overcame  it  not.  ®  There  came  a  man  sent  from  God  whose  name 
was  John.  '  The  same  came  for  witness,  that  he  might  bear  witness 
of  the  Light,  that  all  might  believe  through  him.  ®  He  was  not  the 
Light  (!)  but  came  that  he  might  bear  witness  of  the  Light.  ^  That 
was  the  true  light  which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into 
the  world." 

There  are  few  passages  in  literature  of  equal  length  with 
Jn.  1 :  1-4,  9-14,  16-18  which  give  less  ground  for  the  sug- 
gestion of  carelessness  in  composition.  We  cannot  therefore 
believe  the  author  of  this  prologue  responsible  for  mutilation 
of  his  own  work  so  flagrant  as  the  interjection  of  verses  5-8 
and  15  produces.  In  the  case  of  verses  6-8,  which  seem  to 
be  drawn  from  5:35  f.,  the  relation  of  verse  9  to  verse  4  is  so 
obscured  as  to  make  its  opening  clause  one  of  the  most  noted 

1  "In  die  Ewigkeit  hineinschneit." 


THE  ANALYTICAL  SCHOOL  479 

cruces  interpretum  of  the  entire  New  Testament.  In  the 
case  of  verse  15,  the  "fulness"  of  verse  16  is  no  longer  seen 
to  be  the  "fulness  of  grace  and  truth"  of  verse  14,  and  the 
reader  loses  the  point  unless  reminded  by  Col.  2 :  9  f .  Matter 
interjected  after  this  fashion  does  not  come  in  by  accident 
after  publication,  leaving  no  traces  in  the  history  of  the  text. 
Neither  can  it  be  due  to  revision  by  the  author  himself.  As 
Wendt^  and  others  have  shown,  Jn.  1:6-8  and  15  are  in- 
terpolations of  the  same  tyj^e  as  those  which  Lightfoot 
designated  "parenthetic  additions"  and  Blass  "sentences 
supplied  in  the  margin";  only  their  presence  in  all  manu- 
scripts in  the  same  place  and  the  same  form  proves  their  in- 
sertion to  have  been  anterior  to  publication;  i.  e.,  it  is  redac- 
tional,  not  textual.  It  belongs  to  the  domain  of  the  higher, 
not  merely  of  textual,  criticism. 

The  influence  of  Baur  is  partly  responsible  for  the  general 
resistance  to  the  force  of  evidence  of  this  kind.  But  we  must 
also  realize  that  the  mistaken  and  uncritical  methods  of  the 
critics  themselves  have  placed  greater  obstacles  in  their  way 
than  the  arguments  of  their  opponents.  A  priori  assump- 
tions will  mislead  a  critic  just  as  surely  as  an  apologist,  and 
in  his  case  are  less  excusable.  Since  the  time  of  C.  H.  Weisse  ^ 
analyzers  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  have  too  often  approached 
its  problems  with  an  ill-concealed  desire  to  rescue  a  preferred 
element  by  the  sacrifice  of  another  deemed  of  less  importance. 
There  must  be,  to  their  feeling,  an  apostolic  element  con- 
nected, if  not  with  the  Apostle  John,  at  least  with  a  name- 
sake who  should  be  a  real  "disciple  of  the  Lord."  Now  the 
preferred  element  would  be,  as  with  Weisse,  A.  Schweitzer, 
and  Wendt,  the  discourses;  now  it  would  be  the  narrative, 
as  with  Renan.  In  either  case  there  could  be  set  over  against 
the  preferred  element  another  regarded  as  interpolated  or 

1  Lehre  Jesii,  Vol.  I,  pp.  21Q  ff.  on  Jn.  i:  15. 

2  Evangelische  Ceschichle,  1838. 


48o  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

appended  by  a  later  redactor  with  back  broad  enough  for  all 
responsibilities  of  error  and  inaccuracy,  a  convenient  scape- 
goat for  all  objections  raised  by  historical  criticism.  Such 
has  been  the  aim  of  the  "partitionists,"  among  whom  the 
present  writer  finds  himself  unwillingly  classified  by  the 
author  of  The  Criticism  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  An  obscurity 
not  apparent  to  ourselves  seems  to  have  lurked  in  our  state- 
ment of  1900: 

"  It  would  be  puerile  to  proceed  at  once  to  the  assumption  that 
because  a  more  and  a  less  trustworthy  element  aa^- present  in  the 
discourses  and  narrative  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  we  have  nothing 
to  do  but  to  resort  to  the  methods  of  documentary  analysis  to 
reach  offhand  the  solution  of  the  problem.  Against  all  such 
rough  and  ready  attempts  to  distinguish  an  element  which  we 
may  deem  worthy  of  the  Apostle,  and  another  which  shall  bear 
all  the  onus  of  the  mistakes  and  misunderstandings,  the  famous 
comparison  of  Strauss  holds  true;  the  Gospel  of  John  is  like  the 
seamless  coat  of  the  Lord."  ^ 

The  obscurity  seems  not  to  have  been  dissipated  by  the 
following,  written  at  a  little  later  date : 

"The  general  verdict  of  scholars  on  such  attempts  (viz.  at- 
tempts to  resolve  the  Fourth  Gospel  into  documents  similar  to 
those  blended  in  the  Pentateuch)  is  justly  of  a  discouraging  char- 
acter. The  relation  of  the  fourth  evangelist  to  his  sources  is  not 
a  mere  matter  of  scissors  and  paste,  nor  is  it  to  be  conceived  after 
the  analogy  of  'redactors'  of  the  historical  books  of  the  Old 
Testament.  Even  the  perplexing  question  of  the  sources  of  Acts 
is  likely  to  prove  less  intricate.  Certainly  the  search  will  not  be 
promoted  by  ready-made  theories  as  to  the  personality  of  the 
author  and  his  relation  to  the  Apostle,^  nor  by  artificial  devices 
of  separation,  whether  by  sweeping  classifications,  like  Wendt's, 

1  Bacon,  Introd.  to  N.  T.  Lit.,  pp.  267  f. 

2  We  regret  to  be  obliged  to  "name  the  gentleman,"  but  since  we  seem  to 
be  regarded  as  sharing  his  opinions,  if  not  depending  on  them,  we  will  con- 
fess that  the  theory  here  more  especially  alluded  to  was  that  of  Delff. 


THE  ANALYTICAL  SCHOOL  481 

into  narrative  material  (secondary)  and  discourse  material  (Jo- 
hannine),  or  by  line-spun  distinctions  of  style  and  catch-words  of 
vocabulary."  ' 

We  have  endeavored  in  llic  preceding  chapter  to  elucidate 
the  distinction  between  "partitionists"  and  "revisionists." 
So  long  ago  as  Scholtcn  it  was  carefully  enunciated.^  Parti- 
tion theories  seem  either  to  have  been  suggested  by  the 
documentary  theory  of  the  Pentateuch  with  its  evidences  of 
compilation,  or  by  fancies  connected  with  the  imaginary 
Elder  John  of  Ephesus.  "Revisionists"  start  from  the  actual 
phenomena  of  the  text  in  comparison  with  the  known  vicissi- 
tudes of  similar  writings.  The  analyses  of  Wendt  and  DclfT 
are  typical  of  the  partitionists,  with  whom  we  need  not 
further  concern  ourselves.^  Theories  of  revision  and  sup- 
plementation are  best  exemplified  by  the  two  very  recent 
discussions  of  Wcllhausen,  entitled  respectively  "Expansions 
and  Alterations  in  the  Text  of  the  Fourth  Gospel"  (1907)'', 
and  "The  Gospel  of  John"  (1908).^ 

"Revisionists"  regard  the  phenomena  as  indicating  a 
rcdactional  process,  whose  latest  undulations  only  are  trace- 
able in  the  textual  transmission,  but  which  centers  in  the 
Appendix.  This  imphes  a  method  of  critical  scrutiny  which 
approaches  the  problem  from  the  side  of  the  Appendix,  tak- 
ing careful  account  of  the  textual  phenomena,  but  without 

1  Bacon,  art.  "Tatian's  Rearrangement  of  the  Fourth  Gospel"  in  Amer. 
Journ.  of  Theol.,  Oct.,  1900,  pp.  770  f. 

^  Das  Evang.  n.  Johannes,  1864.  German  transl.  Lang  1867,  pp. 22-69. 
See  also  Holtzmann,  op.  cit.,  p.  59. 

3  The  five  articles  contributed  to  the  Theol.  Rundschau  by  A.  Meyer  in 
1904  and  1906  and  in  1905  two  by  Bousset  give  an  adequate  review  of  these 
theories. 

*  Erweiterungen  und  Aenderungen  des  Vierten  Evangeliums,  Berlin,  1907. 

5  Das  Evangelium  Johannis,  Berlin,  190^.  With  these  should  be  com- 
pared the  work  of  Blass,  who,  however,  finds  his  explanation  in  the  textual 
history  only,  and  the  contribution  of  E,  Schwartz  in  GoU.  Gel.  Nachr.,  1907, 
PP-  342-372. 

Fourth  Gospel — 31 


482  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

the  delusion  of  those  who  imagine  that  there  is  no  history  of 
the  evangehc  writings  behind  that  furnished  by  the  textual 
critic.  Mere  evidences  of  a  high  degree  of  scribal  alteration 
in  the  text  of  John  will  not  therefore  of  themselves  concern 
us.^  We  shall  also  reserve  for  separate  consideration  in 
Chapter  XIX  the  special  phenomenon  of  the  "apparent  dis- 
placements." The  question  for  us  at  present  is  that  of  the 
passages  in  the  body  of  the  Gospel  which  show  intrinsic 
connection  with  the  Appendix.  The  latter  chapter,  as  we 
have  seen,  has  a  well-defmed  viewpoint  and  an  object  of  its 
own,  clearly  distinguishable  from  those  of  chapters  1-20. 
It  aims  in  general  to  accommodate  the  Johannine  to  the 
common  evangelic  tradition  in  its  latest  synoptic  form, 
which  is  generally  that  of  Luke.  Passages  connected  with 
the  Appendix,  if  really  due  to  redactional  insertion,  may  be 
expected  to  show  traces  of  the  fact  (i)  in  greater  or  less  dis- 
turbance to  the  context;  (2)  occasionally  in  a  continued  re- 
flection of  this  disturbance  in  the  textual  history;  (3)  in  a 
specially  close  relation  to  the  synoptic  narrative. 

The  most  conspicuous  instance  of  a  passage  admittedly 
inseparable  from  the  Appendix  has  already  been  sufficiently 
considered.  It  is  that  of  19:35,  on  which  "defenders"  so 
largely  build.  We  have  already  seen  '  that  even  the  textual 
evidence  here  concurs  in  marked  degree  with  both  the  other 
considerations.  As  Blass  has  pointed  out,''  not  only  verse  35 
has  every  appearance  of  a  "parenthetic  addition,"  but 
verses  34  and  37,  if  omitted  with  it,  leave  the  connection 

1  In  view  of  our  previous  observation  of  the  comparative  neglect  of  Matthew 
by  the  fourth  evangelist  (above,  pp.  368  ff.)  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  the 
discovery  of  the  Syr.  ^'°"  confirming  D  and  A*  in  their  omission  of  Jn.  12:8 
(  =  Mt.  26:  11),  removes  the  only  instance  of  direct  use  of  Matthew  from  the 
Fourth  Gospel.    The  verse  is  certainly  a  "Western  non-interpolation." 

2  Above,  pp.  461  ff. 

3  Theol.  Si.  u.  Kr.,  1902,  pp.  128  ff.  Blass  had  previously  stated  the  sub- 
stance of  his  argument  in  Philology  of  the  Gospels,  1898,  pp.  224  ff. 


THE  ANALYTICAL  SCHOOL  483 

much  improved,  to  say  nothing  of  the  apocryphal  character 
of  the  alleged  incident.  It  is  similarly  added  in  almost  all  of 
the  earliest  texts  after  Mt.  27:49,  and  was  already  known 
to  Celsus  (170  A.  D.)j  hut  in  a  different  form  from  the  Jo- 
hannine.  Whatever  the  character  or  derivation  of  the  inci- 
dent of  verses  34  and  37,  none  will  deny  that  the  interest  and 
motive  of  verse  35  are  identical  with  those  of  21 :  24. 

Next  to  19:35  in  distinctness  of  relation  to  the  Appendix 
is  the  group  of  passages,  wholly  synoptic  in  contents,  which 
relate  the  story  of  Peter's  Denial  in  Jn.  13:  36-38  and  18:  15- 
18,  25-27.  Without  the  Appendix,  these  passages  remaining 
where  they  stand,  the  Gospel  would  leave  Peter  under  the 
unhfted  cloud  of  disgrace.  The  Appendix  relates  his  rein- 
statement in  his  position  of  leadership,  and  assurance  of 
ultimately  retrieving  his  failure  in  the  attempt  to  "follow" 
unto  prison  and  death  (21:  15-22).  Now  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  higher  critic  it  is  impossible  that  either  the  story 
of  the  denial  or  the  reinstatement  can  have  formed  part  of  the 
Gospel  in  its  original  condition,  because  its  original  conclud- 
ing chapter — chapter  20  is  universally  admitted  to  have  been 
such — ])ays  no  attention  to  Peter's  condition  of  humiliation, 
but  treats  him  as  still  one  of  the  leaders  in  the  apostolic  group 
commissioned  to  the  world  and  endowed  with  the  Spirit.  In 
view  of  this  indissoluble  interrelation  of  the  passages  Jn.  13: 
36-38;  18:  15-18,  25-27,  with  21:  15-24,  it  is  interesting  to 
obser\-e  the  radical  treatment  of  the  two  paragraphs  in 
ch.  18  by  Syr. '''"■,  concerning  which  Blass  writes  as  follows: 

"Our  John  is  not  identical  with  the  real  John,  and  it  will  be 
quite  clear  even  from  a  careful  examination  of  the  text  as  it 
stands,  that  John  can  neither  have  meant  nor  have  written  the 
commonly  accej)ted  account  with  Annas'  house  as  the  scene  of 
the  trial.  '  They  led  him  away  to  Annas  first,  for  he  was  father-in- 
law  to  Caiaphas,  which  was  tlie  hi.<!;h  ])riest  that  same  year.  Now 
Caiaphas  was  he  which  gave  counsel  to  the  Jews  that  it  was 


484  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

expedient  that  one  man  should  die  for  the  people  (see  11:  49  ff.). 
And  Simon  Peter  followed  Jesus,  and  so  did  another  disciple: 
that  disciple  was  known  unto  the  high  priest,  and  went  in  with 
Jesus  into  the  palace  of  the  high  priest'  (Jn.  18:  13  ff.).  After 
having  been  distinctly  told  that  Caiaphas  was  the  high  priest 
that  year,  and  not  Annas,  we  read  that  the  other  disciple  went 
in  with  Jesus  into  the  palace  of  the  high  priest.  Whose  palace, 
therefore?  Of  course  that  of  Caiaphas.  How  has  Jesus  come 
there?  The  writer,  leaving  that  serious  omission  unexplained 
and  uncorrected,  goes  on  to  speak  not  of  Annas,  but  of  the  high 
priest,  and  to  tell  of  Peter's  being  introduced  into  his  palace 
(ver.  18),  and  then  of  Peter's  first  denial,  and  next  not  of  the 
second  one,  but  of  the  trial  of  Christ.  After  that  he  suddenly 
says,  (ver.  24) :  '  Now  Annas  sent  him  bound  to  Caiaphas  the  high 
priest.'  Then  he  returns  to  Peter,  telling  of  his  second  and  third 
denials,  and  from  Peter  again  to  Christ  (ver.  28) :  '  Then  led  they 
Jesus  from  Caiaphas  into  the  hall  of  judgment'  (to  Pilate).  This 
narrative  is  so  utterly  confused  that  it  is  no  wonder  King  James' 
translators  tried  to  correct  it  by  interpretation,  giving  in  ver.  24 
not ' sent'  but ' had  sent.'  ^  But  the  Greek  words  give  no  warrant 
for  this  interpretation,  and  even  if  it  were  possible,  we  could  not 
withhold  our  censure  of  the  writer,  as  he  would  then  have  told  a 
simple  story  in  the  most  awkward  way."  - 

Professor  Blass  is  right  about  the  confusion,  though  the 
discovery  of  it  is  not  due  either  to  his  critical  acumen  or  to 
the  unearthing  of  the  Sinaitic  Syriac,  whose  text  Blass  adopts 
offhand,  declaring: 

"This  is  the  narrative  of  a  real  author;  the  other  one  is  that  of 
blundering  scribes." 

The  confusion  had  been  recognized  centuries  before  the 
discovery   of    Syr.  ^'"-j  and   the  whole  situation  clearly  set 

1  Luther  had  observed  the  confusion  at  a  still  earher  time,  and  attributed 
it  to  displacement  "in  the  turning  of  the  leaf,  as  often  happens."  Beza 
adopted  a  similar  view.    See  Holtzmann,  op.  cit.,  p.  57. 

2  Blass,  Philology  of  the  Gospels,  pp.  57  f. 


THE  ANALYTICAL  SCHOOL  485 

forth  by  the  higher  critic  F.  S])itta,  who  accounted  for  it  as 
due  to  the  accidental  disj)laccmcnt  of  a  leaf  of  pa])yrus.'  In 
reality  it  is  due  neither  to  accident  to  the  original  manu- 
script, nor  to  the  work  of  "blundering  scribes."  The  phe- 
nomenon is  completely  accounted  for  as  soon  as  we  look  at 
the  original  from  which  the  extract  on  Peter's  Denial  has 
been  made  for  insertion  in  Jn.  18 :  14-18,  24-27.  The  curious 
division  after  verse  18,  by  which  Peter  is  made  to  stand 
warming  himself  among  the  servants  at  the  fire  in  the  court 
of  Annas'  house,  and  then  in  verse  25  to  be  standing  and 
warming  himself  in  precisely  the  same  situation  at  Cai- 
aphas'  house,  Jesus  having  made  the  change  of  scene  mean- 
time (verse  24),  is  simply  due  to  uncircumspcct  transfer  of 
Mk.  14:5311.  to  the  pages  of  John.  It  is  Mark  who  first 
drew  the  picture  of  Peter  entering  the  court  of  "the  high 
priest"  and  warming  himself  at  the  fire  (Mk.  14:53-54), 
then  passed  to  Jesus'  trial  by  the  chief  priests,  and  then 
returned  again.  This  trial  scene  of  Mk.  14:55-65  is  a 
repHca  of  the  trial  before  Pilate  (15:1  ff.)  and  is  so  awk- 
wardly interjected  as  to  make  the  brutal  treatment  of  the 
victim  of  verse  65,  properly  the  low  })astime  of  the  menials 
who  "led  Jesus  away"  {^30,  54),  appear  to  be  indulged  in 
by  the  members  of  the  Sanhedrin  (!).  Thereafter  Mark  re- 
sumes his  story  with  a  second  statement  of  how  Peter  was 
warming  himself  at  the  fire  (verses  66  f.),  and  relates  finally 
the  denials.  The  insertion  in  Jn.  18:  14-18,  24-27  has  fol- 
lowed this  model  exactly,  inserting  the  story  of  the  trial 
between  two  identical  statements  of  how  "Peter  stood  and 
warmed  himself"  (verse  18^  =  250).  It  even  reflects  the 
absurdity  that  the  abuse  of  Jesus  took  place  in  the  actual 
presence  of  the  high  j)ricst  (18:  22  f.;  cj.  Acts  23:  2  ff.).  The 
interpolator  only  failed  to  observe  one  of  llie  minute  "cor- 

1  Zur  Gesch.  u.  Lit.  d.  Urchristenthums,  1893,  PP-  ^S^  ^-    Blass'  reference 
to  this  as  "getting  at  part  of  tiie  truth"  is  hardly  adequate. 


486  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

rections"  of  the  fourth  evangeHst  (in  this  case  probably  a 
real  historical  improvement),  and  herein  proves  himself  an- 
other and  a  later  writer.  The  fourth  evangeHst  not  only 
names  the  anonymous  "high  priest"  of  Mark  (correctly)  as 
in  Matthew  "Caiaphas,"  but  associates  him  as  in  Luke, 
though  more  precisely  and  accurately,  with  Annas.  To  the 
house  of  Annas  accordingly,  which  Talmudic  writers  locate 
in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  Gethsemane,  Jesus  is  brought 
for  preliminary  examination  and  detention,  until  at  dawn  he 
can  be  delivered  up  to  Pilate.  The  statement  of  verse  28, 
therefore,  that  at  dawn  they  led  Jesus  "from  Caiaphas  to 
the  Pretorium"  does  not  mean,  as  it  is  taken  to  mean  in 
verse  24,  "from  Caiaphas'  house,"  but  "from  Annas'  house," 
where  Caiaphas  had  been  conducting  the  examination  of  the 
prisoner.  But  the  interpolator  by  effecting  the  change  of 
scene  in  verse  24  has  produced  the  absurdity  of  Peter's  posi- 
tion already  noted.  The  simple  omission  of  verses  14-18 
(or  15-18)  and  24-27  removes  every  disturbing  feature,  and 
leaves  a  logical  and  consistent  story.  The  attempt  of  Syr.  ^'"• 
to  cure  the  trouble  by  transposing  verse  24  after  verse  13  and 
19-23  after  verse  15,  ranks  with  the  conjectures  of  Luther  and 
Beza,  or  with  the  mistranslation  of  the  Authorized  Version, 
except  in  being  more  drastic.  The  Syr.  ®'"-  furnishes  in  fact 
several  other  instances  of  the  kind.  In  chapter  4  it  similarly 
transposes  verse  8  into  verse  6,  and  in  21 :  7  f.  it  makes  the  ex- 
planatory parenthesis  "for  they  were  not  far  from  the  land" 
to  follow  verse  7,  as  the  sense  requires.  While,  then,  we 
cannot  justify  Blass'  precipitate  adoption  of  the  Sinaitic 
transpositions  as  representing  the  "real  author,"  they  do 
afford  entirely  unbiased  evidence  to  the  gaps  and  seams  of 
this  Gospel  which  still  attracted  attention  in  170-180  a.  d., 
and  led  to  attempted  improvements. 

But  there  remains  one  further  passage  of  the  group  con- 
nected with  the  Appendix.     It  is  that  which  interjects  the 


THE  ANALYTICAL  SCHOOL 


487 


account  of  Peter's  olTcr  to  follow  in  Jn.  13:36-38  after  the 
giving  of  the  "new  commandment."  This  passage  employs 
the  same  synoptic  material  as  before  (cf.  Mk.  14:27-31  = 
Lk.  22:31-34)  but  introduces  it  where  it  interrupts  the  con- 
nection of  the  "new  commandment"  with  its  development 
in  the  parable  of  the  \'ine  and  the  Branches.  It  should  come 
after  Jn.  16:  32  f.,  the  counterpart  of  Jesus'  prediction  of  the 
desertion  of  the  Twelve  in  Mk.  14:  27;  for  this  prediction  is 
the  occasion  of  Peter's  olTer.  We  have  the  following  par- 
allehsm : 


Mk.  14:27,  29  f.;  Lk.  22:33 

"And  Jesus  saith  unto 
them,  All  ye  shall  be  caused 
to  stumble;  for  it  is  written, 
I  will  smite  the  shepherd  and 
the  sheep  shall  be  scattered 
abroad.  .  .  .  But  Peter 
said  unto  him.  Although  all 
shall  be  caused  to  stumble, 
yet  will  not  I"  (Lk.  "And  he 
said  unto  him.  Lord,  with 
thee  I  am  ready  to  go  both  to 
prison  and  to  death")  "And 
Jesus  saith  unto  him.  Verily 
I  say  unto  thee,  that  thou, 
to-day,  even  this  night,  be- 
fore the  cock  crow  twice 
shalt  deny  me  thrice." 


Jn.    16:31  f.;    13:36-38 

"Jesus  answered  them.  Do  ye  now 
believe?  Behold  the  hour  cometh, 
yea,  is  come,  that  ye  shall  be  scat- 
tered, every  man  to  his  own  and 
shall  leave  me  alone:  and  yet  I  am 
not  alone  because  the  Father  is  with 
me.  .  .  .  Simon  Peter  saith  unto 
him  Lord,  whither  goest  thou?  Jesus 
answered,  whither  I  go  thou  canst  not 
follow  me  now;  but  thou  shalt  follow 
after\\'ards.  Peter  saith  unto  him,  Lord, 
why  cannot  I  follow  thee  even  now  ?  I 
will  lay  down  my  life  for  thee.  Jesus 
answereth,  Wilt  thou  lay  down  thy  life 
for  me  ?  Verily,  verily  I  say  unto  thee, 
The  cock  shall  not  crow  till  thou  hast 
denied  me  thrice." 


Manifestly  Jn.  13:  36-38,  to  make  true  connection,  should 
have  been  inserted  where  we  have  placed  it,  after  16:31  f. 
The  error  is  due  to  13:  33,  where  Jesus  says  "Whither  I  go 
ye  cannot  come."  But  this  subject  of  his  departure,  here 
proleptically  introduced  after  a  distinctive  habit  of  "John," 
is  not  taken  up  "plainly"  until  16:  29.  The  interpolator  has 
come  in  too  soon.    He  should  have  waited  for  his  cue,  where 


488  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Jesus'  discourse,  after  developing  the  new  commandment  in 
15:1-16:27,  returned  to  the  plain  statement  "I  leave  the 
vi^orld  and  go  unto  the  Father"  (16:  28). 

Independently  even  of  this  notable  proof  that  13:36-38 
is  inserted  by  a  hand  other  and  later  than  that  of  the  original 
evangelist,  we  have  the  displacement  which  accompanies  it. 
For  scarcely  any  of  all  the  striking  instances  of  this  phe- 
nomenon of  displacement  in  John  has  attracted  such  general 
comment,  often  by  quite  independent  observers,  as  the  in- 
troduction of  the  "farewell"  chapter  (chapter  14)  between  13 
and  15.  At  this  point  it  comes  in  quite  prematurely;  its  true 
place  is  after  chapters  15-16;  for  these  continue  the  discourse 
which  draws  to  an  end  in  14:  1-24  and  is  formally  concluded 
in  verses  25-31.  It  can  hardly  be  accidental  that  so  many 
of  the  displacements  occur  in  connection  with  added  mate- 
rial of  synoptic  character. 

It  thus  appears  that  every  one  of  the  passages  in  the  body 
of  the  Gospel  intrinsically  connected  with  the  Appendix  gives 
independent  evidence  of  being  ahen  to  its  present  context, 
the  insertion  of  a  later  hand.  The  interpolator  depends  on 
similar  sources  to  those  of  R,  works  in  the  same  interest,  and 
produces  a  disturbance  of  the  original  connection  which  is 
sometimes  reflected  even  in  the  textual  history. 

One  more  passage  of  synoptic  content  stands  related  to 
the  Appendix,  not  so  much  in  subject-matter  as  in  phrase- 
ology. So  long  ago  as  1864  Scholten,  critically  reviewing  the 
analysis  of  A.  Schweizer,  found  his  objections  to  the  primary 
authenticity  of  many  passages  inadequately  sustained.  Re- 
garding two,  however,  Schweizer  seemed  to  Scholten  to  es- 
tablish his  case.  These  were  (i)  18:9,  because  it  seems  to 
mistake  the  sense  of  17:  12;  and  (2)  2:  21  f.,  against  whose 
authenticity  Scholten  brought  no  fewer  than  eleven  considera- 
tions, only  two  of  which  need  here  detain  us;  for  we  have 
already  found   stronger  evidences  of  entirely  independent 


THE  ANALYTICAL  SCHOOL  489 

character  applying  to  the  whole  j)aragraph.  According  to 
Schohen : 

"the  evangelist  nowhere  else  brings  forward  predictions  of  Jesus' 
bodily  resurrection;  he  also  shows,  by  speaking  in  20:  9  of  ypa(f)-^ 
only,  that  he  has  no  knowledge  of  the  saying  2:  19  as  a  reference 
made  by  Jesus  to  his  resurrection."  Moreover,  "Thfe  reanimation 
of  Jesus  is  expressed  passively  as  a  being  raised;  according  to  the 
evangelist  on  the  contrary  Jesus  rises  (dvaorao-is,  dvacrTrjvuL)  11 :  25; 
20:  9.    Only  in  21:  14  do  we  have  eye/j^et's."  ^ 

Indications  of  connection  with  the  Appendix  so  inconclusive 
as  these  would  hardly  call  for  more  than  passing  mention, 
were  it  not  that  on  so  many  previous  occasions  we  have  come 
across  independent  indications  of  the  alien  origin  of  Jn,  2: 
13-25,  and  that  among  these  are  some  which  imply  on  the 
one  side  an  interest  in  the  adjustment  of  Johannine  to  syn- 
optic story,  on  the  other  a  relation  to  the  peculiar  chronologi- 
cal system  of  this  Gospel,  and  the  displacement  of  consider- 
able sections  of  its  material. 

The  Purging  of  the  Temple  is  not  only  what  Wellhausen 
calls  "a  synoptic  story  which  has  no  proper  place  in"  a 
Gospel  "whose  motivation  of  the  Passion  (in  the  Lazarus 
episode)  leaves  no  room  for  an  assault  of  Jesus  upon  the 
Jewish  authorities  made  so  openly  and  with  such  impunity." 
Historically  it  is  of  course  inseparable  from  its  synoj)tic 
sequel,  the  delivering  up  of  Jesus  to  Pilate."  We  cannot  as- 
sume a  priori,  however,  that  a  writer  so  indifferent  to  the 
historical  nexus  of  cause  and  effect  might  not  insert  a  story 
rich  to  his  mind  in  doctrinal  or  apologetic  value,  regardless 
of  historical  consistency.  The  case  is  somewhat  altered  when 
we  observe  that  the  apologetic  interest  subserved  by  this 
report  of  Jesus'  enigmatic  reply  to  the  demand  of  a  sign  from 
heaven  is  met  in  Jn.  6:  30  ff.  quite  independently,  and  in  a 
different  manner.    To  the  author  of  Jn.  2:  14-22  the  sign  of 

1  Evang.  n.  Jokaitnc;,  p.  65.  -  Sec  above,  jjp.  394  f. 


490  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

the  son  of  man  is  the  bodily  resurrection  "after  three  days." 
It  corresponds  exactly  to  Matthew's  interpretation  of  "the 
sign  of  Jonah"  (Mt.  12:  40).  To  the  author  of  Jn.  6:  30  ff. 
Jesus  himself  is  the  sign,  as  in  Lk.  1 1 :  30.  Or  rather  we  have 
the  same  connection  as  in  Mk.  8:  1-13  between  the  Sign  of 
the  Loaves  and  Jesus'  giving  of  himself,  with  the  eucharistic 
symbolism  made  more  explicit.  Christ  himself  is  the  new 
manna  which  comes  down  from  heaven  and  gives  life  to  the 
world.  Mark's  story  of  the  Demand  of  a  Sign,  followed  at 
once  by  Jesus'  reminder  to  the  disciples  of  the  miracles  of 
the  Loaves  (Mk.  8:  1-14)  is  thus  combined  in  Jn.  6:3off. 
with  the  Lukan  interpretation  of  "the  Sign  of  Jonah"  (Lk. 
1 1 :  30)  that  Jesus  is  himself  the  sign.  It  is  true  that  already 
in  the  Synoptics  there  is  duplication.  The  demand  for  a  sign 
is  connected  first  as  in  Jn.  6  with  the  collision  in  Capernaum 
after  the  Feeding  of  the  Multitude  (Mk.  8:11  ff.  =  Mt.  12: 
2)^  ff.  =Lk.  II :  29  ff.),  later,  as  in  Jn.  2,  with  the  collision  in 
Jerusalem  after  the  Purging  of  the  Temple  (Mk.  1 1 :  27-33  = 
Mt.  21:  23-32  =Lk.  20:1-8).  Still  a  writer  such  as  our 
fourth  evangelist  would  scarcely  be  hkely  to  embody  so 
comparatively  crude  an  interpretation  of  the  "sign"  as  that 
of  2:  14-22  in  addition  to  the  more  "spiritual"  of  6:3off. 
The  Mattha^an  view,  as  we  have  seen,  does  not  appeal  to  him. 
Why  then  anticipate  his  own  loftier  teaching  of  the  "sign" 
by  this  preliminary  passover  with  the  variant  idea? 

For  we  have  also  found  that  2:  14-22,  with  its  connective 
tissue  in  verse  13,  stands  peculiarly  related  to  the  scheme  of 
"  feasts  of  the  Jews"  and  to  the  chronology  of  the  Gospel.  Its 
author  counts  Jesus'  age  as  46  at  this  beginning  of  his  minis- 
try. It  is  a  probable,  though  by  no  means  a  certain  inference, 
that  he  takes  Jn.  8:  57  (rightly  or  wrongly)  to  imply  that 
Jesus  was  then  close  to  his  fiftieth  year.  If  so  he  must  have 
treated  the  unnamed  feast  of  5 :  i  as  a  passover,  as  most  of 
the  early  fathers  have  done.     This,  however,  is  certainly  a 


THE  ANALYTICAL  SCHOOL  491 

misunderstanding.^  Turner  has  shown  that  the  Fourth 
Gospel  fundamentally  agrees  with  Mark  in  assuming  a  dura- 
tion of  tioo  years  for  the  ministry.  Only  at  a  comparatively 
late  period,  in  fact,  could  the  idea  of  a  ministry  of  more  than 
two  years  make  any  headway  in  the  Church.  The  original 
scheme,  then,  will  have  contemplated  a  Galilean  ministry 
concluded  by  a  i)assovcr  signalized  by  the  miracle  of  the 
Loaves  in  Gahlee,  and  after  the  Judxan  ministry  a  second 
passover  signalized  by  the  Passion  and  Resurrection.  The 
extra  passover  of  2:  13  ff.  would  fall,  therefore,  quite  outside 
the  plan.  In  point  of  fact  we  shall  see  that  like  the  instance 
of  13:36-38  already  discussed,  it  stands  immediately  con- 
nected with  one  of  the  most  notable  of  the  "apparent  dis- 
placements." The  connective  verses  23-25  lead  over  to  a 
paragraph  (3:1-21)  full  of  references  and  presuppositions 
which  fall  out  of  the  implied  situation.  Of  these  we  must 
take  consideration  in  the  succeeding  chapter.  Here  we  note 
only  that,  unlike  the  other  visits  of  Jesus  to  Jerusalem  at  the 
great  feasts  distinctive  of  this  Gospel,  the  incident  and 
dialogue  have  no  relation  whatever  to  the  ritual  of  the  feast 
itself.  The  interview  with  Nicodemus  deals  with  the  doctrine 
of  the  "new  birth"  by  water  and  the  Spirit.  Both  by  its  rela- 
tion of  dependence  to  Mk.  10:  13-31,^  and  by  its  doctrinal 
purport,  we  should  expect  it  to  appear  in  connection  with  the 
feast  of  Tabernacles,  when  Jesus  went  up  to  Jerusalem  at 
the  desire  of  his  brethren  that  he  declare  himself  openly,  and 
on  the  great  day  signalized  by  the  rite  of  water  pouring  pro- 
claimed the  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  under  this  figure  (7:  37- 
39).     It  certainly  has  no  connection  with  the  symbolism  of 

1  See  above,  pp.  380,  409.  Authorities  no  less  important  than  Hitzig, 
Hilgenfeld,  and  van  Behber  have  maintained  that  "the  feast"  {rj  eopr-f) 
vera  led.)  could  only  mean  Pentecost,  citing  patristic  authority.  It  seems 
more  probable  that  17  ttjs  nevTiKocrTTJs  has  been  canceled. 

2  See  above,  p.  382. 


492  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Passover.  Only  one  other  visit  in  the  Gospel  is  thus  bar- 
ren of  poetic  analogy  between  the  ritual  of  the  feast  and  the 
"signs"  and  teaching  of  Jesus.  It  is  that  of  lo:  22  f.,  which 
merely  interjects  the  statement  that 

"It  was  at  Jerusalem,  the  feast  of  dedication.  It  was  winter, 
and  Jesus  was  walking  in  Solomon's  Porch." 

So  far  from  having  any  relation  to  the  context  this  paren- 
thetic date  interposes  an  interval  of  three  months  between 
the  two  parts  of  a  continuous  dialogue!  In  10: 1-2 1  Jesus 
has  just  vindicated  his  claim  to  be  the  Light  of  the  world, 
already  supported  by  the  accompanying  "sign"  of  giving 
sight  to  the  blind,  by  the  parable  of  the  Good  Shepherd.  In 
verses  24-31  the  Jews  resent  the  implied  claim  to  messianic 
leadership  (the  parable  being  obviously  based  on  Ezek. 
34:  23),  and  Jesus  replies,  continuing  its  imagery: 

"  Ye  believe  not  because  ye  are  not  of  my  sheep,  as  I  said  unto 
you.  My  sheep  hear  my  voice  and  I  know  them,  and  they  follow 
me:  and  I  give  unto  them  eternal  life;  and  they  shall  never  perish, 
neither  shall  any  man  pluck  them  out  of  my  hand." 

Advocates  of  the  integrity  of  the  original  composition  wish 
us  to  believe  that  it  occurred  to  the  author,  after  reaching 
the  interlude  of  verses  19-21,  that  it  would  be  a  good  thing 
for  the  audience  to  take  an  airing  for  three  months,  the 
lecturer  resuming  his  theme  at  the  next  paragraph,  his  pupils, 
after  their  three  months'  vacation,  opening  their  notebooks 
at  the  point  of  interruption.  If  this  be  not  the  motive  it  is 
incumbent  on  those  who  attribute  Jn.  10:  22,  23  to  the  same 
hand  as  the  adjoining  context  to  point  to  some  instance  in 
literature,  sacred  or  secular,  of  a  mode  of  composition  anal- 
ogous to  what  they  impute  to  the  fourth  evangehst.  And 
with  the  majority  of  such  "defenders"  this  is  supposed 
to  represent  the  graphic  and  precise  detail  of  the  eye- 
witness ! 


THE  ANALYTICAL  SCHOOL  493 

Whether  the  two  verses  10:  22  f.  have  simj)ly  been  edi- 
torially transposed,  as  we  were  once  disposed  to  think;  '  or 
as  now  seems  more  probal)le  were  added  simultaneously 
with  the  passover  incident  of  2:  13-25  to  complete  a  total  of 
five  festal  self-presentations  of  Jesus,  is  a  question  for  our 
later  consideration.  At  all  events  the  two  stand  apart  from 
the  festal  schematization  of  the  Gospel  as  a  whole,  and  sug- 
gest editorial  addition  Ijy  their  flagrant  violation  of  the  con- 
text. 

Having  already  anticij^ated  the  (juestion  of  the  dislocation 
of  3:  1-2 1,  anachronistically  inserted  after  the  editorial  sup- 
plement of  2:  13-25,  we  may  now  call  attention  to  the  fact 
that  2:1-12  is  also  disconnected  from  the  preceding  con- 
text; whereas  3:  22  IT.  resumes  the  narrative  concerning  the 
concurrent  work  of  Jesus  and  John  at  the  j)oint  of  interrup- 
tion, with  the  same  scenes  and  the  same  dramatis  j)crsonce. 
The  Wedding  in  Cana  is  in  fact  a  pragmatized  variation  on 
the  same  theme  as  3:  29  f.,  the  theme  of  JNIk.  2:  16-22  and 
of  Mt.  11:  16-19  =Lk.  7-3i~35-  O^  grounds  independent 
of  those  urged  by  Delff  and  Wellhausen  we  must  therefore 
regard  2:  1-12  as  equally  alien  to  the  original  context  with 
2 :  13-25,  though  perhaps  not  added  by  the  same  hand.  The 
real  course  of  thought  proceeds  from  i:  19-51  to  3:  22  ff. 

Starting  thus  from  the  Appendix  we  have  been  led  back 
step  by  step  to  a  perception  of  gaps  and  seams,  structural 
faultings  and  dislocations  throughout  the  substance  of  the 
Gospel.  At  first  the  textual  evidence  confirmed  our  infer- 
ences and  c\cn  seemed  to  ofler  an  explanation  of  the  phe- 
nomena in  some  remarkable  vicissitude  of  the  period  of 
scribal  transmission.    As  we  proceeded  the  phenomena  proved 

1  This  view  is  taken  in  the  article  in  the  American  Joiirn.  of  Theol.  for 
Oct.,  iQOO,  made  the  basis  of  Chapter  XIX.  It  is  credited  by  Holtzmann 
and  Drummonfi  to  Rev.  P.  M.  Strayer,  whose  article  in  the  Journal  of  Theol. 
5/M<//c5  appeared  simultaneously.     See  below,  p.  521,  note. 


494  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

to  have  occurred  on  too  large  a  scale,  and  to  be  too  slightly 
reflected  in  manuscript  variation  to  admit  of  explanation 
through  mere  accident  in  transmission,  or  even  to  the  arche- 
typal text.  Others,  in  particular  Schwartz  and  Wellhausen, 
have  carried  out  the  investigation  in  detail  with  results  more 
or  less  convincing,  more  or  less  affecting  the  general  struc- 
ture and  character  of  the  w^ork.  We  have  first  the  "paren- 
thetic additions"  which  occur  throughout  the  Gospel  and 
which  impel  even  an  opponent  of  the  higher  critics  like  Blass 
to  say: 

"  The  thing  we  find  does  not  look  like  a  double  form  of  the  text 
[as  in  his  theory  of  the  Lukan  writings]  but  like  an  uncommented 
text  on  the  one  side  (not  always  preserved)  and  a  text  accompanied 
with  different  comments  on  the  other."  ^ 

But  between  these  "parenthetic  additions"  and  the  larger 
phenomena  pointed  to  by  critics  of  the  Analytical  School  it 
is  impossible  to  draw  a  line  of  distinction.  The  duplications 
adduced  by  Wellhausen  and  others  in  Jn.  i:  19-23  =  24-28, 
and  even  more  markedly  in  Jn.  18:  28-40  =  19:  1-16,  have 
a  significance  which  can  no  longer  be  ignored  when  led  up  to 
by  the  phenomena  of  both  textual  and  higher  criticism  al- 
ready cited.  The  supplementary  manifestation  to  the  dis- 
ciples for  the  special  benefit  of  Thomas  in  20:  24-29,  after 
in  19-23,  eight  days  before,  all  the  disciples  have  believingly 
welcomed  the  risen  Lord  and  been  endowed  with  their  great 
Commission  and  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  will  certainly 
justify  the  very  emphatic  query  which  Wellhausen  places 
over  against  it.  Not  unlike  in  motive  to  this  reinforcement 
of  the  testimony  to  the  physical  character  of  the  resurrection 
on  the  basis  of  Lk.  24:36-43,  are  the  interjected  qualifi- 
cations and  reductions  of  the  lofty  "spiritualism"  of  the 
evangelist,  repeatedly  pointed  out  by  critics  from  W^eisse  to 
Wendt.    In  the  words  "in  the  last  day"  in  6:  39^,  12:  486, 

1  Philology,  p.  233. 


THE  ANALYTICAL  SCHOOL  495 

"and  I  will  raise  him  up  in  the  last  day,"  6:  40b,  44b,  and  in 
5:  28,  29  Scholten  found  evidence  of  the  same  hand  "which 
in  21:22,  23  represents  the  parousia  as  a  visible  return." 
Wendt  '  finds  the  same  coarsening  of  the  sense  of  the  con- 
text in  Jn.  5:28f.,  and  adds  further  instances  of  supple- 
mentation. Thus  12 :  36/^-43  is  shown  to  cut  oiT  the  conclud- 
ing words  of  Jesus  in  44-50  from  the  situation  of  35-360,  so 
as  to  leave  him  without  hearers,  and  I3:i8f.  to  separate 
verse  20  from  its  connection  with  16  f.  Wellhausen  finds  the 
evidences  of  later  change  and  supplementation  so  pervasive 
as  to  leave  us  in  doubt  whether  it  is  permissible  to  speak  of  a 
Grundschrift  at  all.  What  he  leaves  as  such  is  scarcely  more 
than  a  heap  of  fragments.  Instead  of  a  Johannine  writer  we 
should  have  an  Ephesian  school,  whose  writings  were  cast  in 
a  common  mold,  but  as  now  agglutinated  present  scarcely 
more  than  the  appearance  of  consecutive  story. 

But  enough.  We  are  not  now  concerned  with  the  extent 
to  which  the  work  of  documentary  analysis  may  conceivably 
be  carried.  Sufficient  evidence  has  already  been  given  with- 
out consideration  of  the  more  doubtful  cases,  to  prove  that 
this  Gospel  has  certainly  not  escaped  the  fate  of  other  writ- 
ings of  the  kind.  It  has  not  retained  the  form  its  original 
author  first  gave  it,  but  has  experienced  revision,  recasting, 
and  supplementation,  perhaps  repeatedly.  As  regards  in- 
dividual instances,  especially  such  as  depend  exclusively  on 
the  critic's  own  sense  of  what  "must  have  been"  the  author's 
intention,  unsupported  by  textual  evidence  or  direct  connec- 
tion with  the  Appendix,  the  prospect  of  agreement  in  opinion 
among  the  critics  themselves  is  remote.  As  regards  the  fact, 
redactional  revision,  connected  with  the  attachment  of  the 
Appendix  and  to  some  extent  evincing  a  similar  aim  and 
point  of  view,  is  scarcely  any  longer  open  to  doubt.  The 
Analytical  School  of  criticism  has  won  at  least  its  right  to 

•  Lehre  Jesu,  J,  pp.  249  f. 


496  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

exist.  As  regards  one  great  structural  feature  of  the  Gospel, 
the  ''apparent  displacements,"  it  gives  promise  of  new  and 
helpful  light  on  the  history  of  its  composition,  and  of  the 
meanings  it  has  been  made  successively  to  bear.  But  for 
this  phase  of  the  subject  a  new  chapter  will  be  required. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

DISLOCATIONS   OF   MATERIAL   AND   TATIAN'S   ORDER  * 

Reference  has  already  been  made  to  a  special  phenomenon 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel  designated  by  Drummond  its  "ap- 
parent displacements,"  and  variously  accounted  for  by  nu- 
merous observers  of  the  fact.  Some  of  these,  such  as  Holtz- 
mann  and  Drummond,  account  for  it  by  the  carelessness 
of  the  author  "who  cared  more  for  the  associations  of  thought 
than  for  the  order  of  chronology."  Others,  such  as  Blass 
and  Spitta,  attribute  it  to  accident,  "omission  of  whole  sen- 
tences" afterwards  supplied  from  the  margin,  but  at  the 
wrong  place,  or  accidental  disarrangement  of  leaves  in  the 
autograph.  Still  others  find  their  explanation  in  the  process 
of  editorial  revision  w'hose  traces  remain  in  other  phe- 
nomena, notably  in  the  addition  of  the  Aj)pendix. 

In  the  preceding  chapter  enough  of  the  phenomena  have 
been  adduced  to  prove  the  inadequacy  of  the  two  former 
explanations.    As  Wellhausen  expresses  it 

"A  writer  may  be  careless  and  unskillful,  and  even  sometimes  a  bit 
forgetful;  but  he  must  understand  himself,  and  cannot  all  in  a 
moment  have  no  remaining  idea  of  the  content  of  his  own  ex- 
pressions." ^ 

If,  e.  g.,  Jn.  i8:  9  takes  17:  12  in  the  physical  sense  when  the 
spiritual  is  meant;  or  Jn.  18:24  misunderstands  18:13  as 
implying  two  j)laces  of  detention  where  only  one  is  meant, 
we  have  no  alternative.    It  can  only  l)c  another  who  commits 

1  Based  in  part  upon  the  article  "Tatian's  Rearrangement  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel,"  Amer.  Journ.  of  Theol.,  Oct.,  1900. 

2  Evang.  Joh.,  p.  4. 

Fourth  Gospel — 32  497 


498  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

the  blunder.  The  author  cannot  have  misunderstood  him- 
self. 

Again  the  theory  of  accident  is  excluded  almost  at  once 
by  the  magnitude  of  the  phenomena,  the  paucity  of  remain- 
ing traces  in  the  manuscripts  and  versions,  and  the  evidences 
of  the  context.  For  the  material  adjoining  these  "apparent 
displacements"  shows  traces  of  editorial  tinkering  if  not  of 
some  general  plan  and  system  in  the  rearrangement. 

It  is  the  question  of  plan  and  system  which  we  have  mainly 
to  consider  in  the  present  chapter;  for  its  bearing  is  mani- 
festly more  positive  than  negative.  The  phenomena  being 
admitted,  and  explanations  from  the  carelessness  of  the  au- 
thor, or  accident  in  process  of  the  transmission  of  his  work, 
being  found  inadequate,  are  the  evidences  of  editorial  ma- 
nipulation such  as  to  throw  any  light  upon  the  earlier  form 
of  the  material  and  the  nature  and  motives  of  the  alteration  ? 

A  convenient  and  comprehensi\'e  summary  of  the  various 
critical  attempts  to  rectify  the  apparent  disorder,  from 
Hitzig  in  1869  to  that  of  the  present  writer  in  1900  is  given 
by  H.  J.  Holtzmann,  with  his  characteristic  thoroughness, 
in  the  article  already  referred  to.^  The  most  important  in- 
stances are  the  following: 

1  "  Unordnungen  und  Umordnungen  im  vierten  Evangelium,"  Zts.f.  ntl. 
Wiss.,  Ill  (1902),  pp.  50-60.  The  list  includes  F.  Hitzig,  Gesch.  d.  Volkes 
Israel,  1869,  pp.  579  f.;  Norris,  Journ.  of  Philology,  III  (1871),  pp.  107  f.; 
Bertling,  "Eine  Transposition  im  Evang.  Joh.,"  St.  11.  Krit.,  1880,  pp.  351- 
353;  Spitta,  Zur  Gesch.  u.  Litt.  d.  Urchristenthums,  I,  1893,  pp.  155-204; 
Wendt,  Das  Johannesevang.,  1900,  pp.  67-101;  Burton,  "The  Purpose  and 
Place  of  the  Gospel  of  John,"  Bibl.  World,  XIII  (1899);  Strayer  and  C.  H. 
Turner  in  Journ.  of  Theol.  Studies,  1900,  pp.  137-139  and  140-142;  and  the 
present  writer's  discussions  in  Journ.  of  Bibl.  Lit.,  1894,  pp.  64-76;  Am. 
Journ.  of  Theol.,  1900,  pp.  770-795,  and  in  his  Introd.  to  N.  T.  Lit.,  1900, 
pp.  272  ff.  To  these  we  may  add  as  bearing  on  the  same  subject  though 
based  on  a  different  theory,  the  analysis  of  H.  Delff  in  Das  vierte  Evang.,  etc., 
1890,  with  its  supplement  Neue  Beitrdge,  1890,  and  Gesch.  d.  Rabbi  Jesus 
von  Nazareth,  1889.  Delff  finds  the  following  material  (besides  chapter  21) 
due  to  later  interpolation:  i:  1-6,  9-19;  2:  i-ii;  4:  46-54;  5:  19-30;  6:  1-30, 


DISLOCATIONS  OF  MATERIAL  499 

1.  Chapter  5  intervenes  between  two  scenes  of  the  Galilean 
ministry.  From  Cana  and  Capernaum,  the  scenes  of  4:  46- 
54,  one  can  go  "away  to  the  other  side  of  the  sea  of  Galilee" 
(6:  i),  but  not  from  Jerusalem,  the  scene  of  chapter  5.  More- 
over, all  attempts  to  frame  a  consistent  chronology  break 
down  before  the  juxtaposition  of  "the  feast  of  the  Jews" 
(var.,  "a  feast")  of  5:  i  and  "the  passover  the  feast  of  the 
Jews"  of  6:  4.  If  the  order  of  chapters  5  and  6  were  inverted 
the  feast  of  5 :  i  might  be  Pentecost,  as  the  sense  requires. 

2.  Jesus'  justification  of  his  healing  on  the  Sabbath, 
7: 15-24,  continues  the  discourse  of  chapter  5,  as  if  no  in- 
terruption had  occurred.  Jesus  is  still  defending  himself 
against  the  charge  of  5:  15-18,  appeaUng  as  in  5:39-47  to 
the  spirit  of  ]\Ioses'  law  against  those  who  are  condemning 
him  to  death  for  a  breach  of  its  letter,  although  in  the  mean- 
time the  scene  has  changed  to  Galilee  (chapter  6),  and  back 
again  to  Jerusalem  (7:  1-13),  where  the  preservation  of  his 
incognito  is  a  condition  of  safety  he  feels  bound  to  main- 
tain (7:  1-8).^ 

3.  The  denunciation,  10:  26  ff.,  continues  the  figure  of 
the  sheep  which  know  their  shepherd,  10:  4  f.,  and  the  flock 
kept  and  redeemed  for  the  Father,  10:  10-18.  Yet,  in  the 
meantime,  situation,  date,  audience,  and  provocation  are 
wholly  changed  (10:  22-25). 

37-40,  59;  12:  26-31;  iq:  35-3S;  20:  11-19.  Besides  these  larger  additions 
he  finds  minor  supplements  in  2:  17,  21,  22;  4:  44;  6:  44,  54;  7:  39;  12:  16, 
33'  13:  20. 

1  This  instance  was  first  pointed  out  by  Bertling  in  the  article  "Eine 
Transposition  im  Evangelium  Johannis,"  Studien  iind  Kriliken,  1880, 
pp.  351-353.  It  was  subsequently  adopted  by  Wendt  {Lehre  Jesu,  I, 
pp.  228  ff.).  Both  were  unaware  of  the  demonstration  by  J.  P.  Norris 
{Journal  of  Philology,  III,  187 1,  pp.  107  ff.)  that  it  is  chapter  5  which  has 
suffered  transposition  from  before  chap'er  7,  and  not  vice  versa.  The  result 
of  the  received  order  is  a  complete  dislocation  of  the  Johannine  chronology 
through  5:  I  and  an  extraordinary  interruption  of  the  account  of  the  (lalilcan 
ministry  by  separating  4:  46-54  from  its  sequel  6:  i  ff. 


500  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

4.  Jesus'  answer  to  the  general  disbelief,  1 2 :  44-50,  is 
spoken  zum  Fenster  hinaus.  We  reach  a  carefully  elaborated 
ending  of  the  public  ministry  in  12:366-41,  explaining  the 
rejection  of  Jesus  by  his  own  people  as  a  whole  {cj.  i:  11), 
as  a  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah,  so  constantly  ap- 
pealed to  by  the  Synoptists  and  by  Paul  (Isa.  6:9,  10;  cj. 
Mt.  13:  14  f.;  Mk.  4:  12;  Lk.  8:  10;  Acts  28:  25-28;  Rom.  9: 
27,  2>yi  10 •  16-21).  Jesus,  after  announcing  the  impending 
withdrawal  of  his  hght,  has  "departed  and  hid  himself  from 
them"  (verse  366).  Yet  he  resumes  again  as  if  still  continu- 
ing the  discourse  of  12:  20-36,  although  the  changed  situa- 
tion now  makes  it  a  "voice  crying  in  the  wilderness." 

5.  Chapter  14  is  manifestly  a  farewell  discourse;  verses  25- 
31  explicitly  give  the  parting  benediction  and  declare  that 
the  opportunity  for  extended  speech  is  over  (verse  30); 
verse  31  summons  the  company  to  rise  ready  for  departure. 
In  an  article,  "The  Displacement  of  John  xiv,"  in  the 
Journal  of  Biblical  Literature,  1894,  the  present  writer  un- 
dertook to  show,  in  ignorance  of  Spitta's  substantially  identi- 
cal arguments  of  slightly  earlier  date,  that  the  "high-priestly 
prayer,"  chapter  17,  must  have  originally  followed,  while 
the  group  is  standing  (the  attitude  of  prayer,  Mk.  11:25) 
in  readiness  for  the  departure,  18:  i.  The  interruption  of 
chapters  15,  16  seriously  injures,  not  only  this  connection, 
but  its  own  connection  with  chapter  13  {cj.  15:3  with  13 :  10; 
15:12,  17  with  13: 12-15,  34^-;  15- 16-16:  3  with  13:  20;  but 
contrast  16:  5  with  13:  36;  14:  5  ff.). 

6.  The  story  of  Peter's  denial,  18:  14-18,  is  continued  in 
verses  256-27,  necessitating  the  repetition  of  verse  18  in 
verse  25a.  But  in  the  meantime  (verse  24)  the  situation  has 
changed  from  the  house  of  Annas  to  the  palace  of  Caiaphas, 
with  the  result  that  Peter,  who  was  standing  among  a  group 
of  servants  gathered  at  a  fire  of  coals  in  the  court  of  the 
former,  is  now  in  precisely  the  same  situation,  in  the  same 


DISLOCATIONS  OF  MATERIAL  501 

group,  and  apparently  at  the  same  fire,  but  at  the  door,  not 
of  Annas,  but  of  Caiaphas,  before  whom  the  examination  of 
Jesus  has  been  proceeding  in  verses  19-23. 

All  but  the  first  two  of  these  incongruities  of  order  have  been 
already  touched  upon  because  of  their  apparent  connection 
with  editorial  insertions  of  synoptic  material.  Others,  per- 
haps not  less  serious  to  the  critic,  though  less  easy  to  de- 
scribe, have  been  noted  in  other  parts  of  the  Gospel,  and  are 
very  properly  brought  by  Wendt  into  relation  with  the  dis- 
crepancy in  point  of  view  and  religious  feeling  between  the 
evangelist  and  his  material,  which  we  may  illustrate  in  the 
following  passages:  2:  21  f.;  4:43-45;  7:1,  14;  10:  7,  Sb,  9; 
12:  29  f.,  33;  13:  16,  20;  18:  9,  and  chapter  21  as  a  whole.^ 

We  need  not  wonder  that  none  of  the  critics  who  have 
pointed  out  these  incongruities  of  order  or  ha\e  attempted 
rearrangements,  should  have  bethought  himself  to  search  for 
external  evidence.  But  the  experience  which  one  after  the 
other  has  gone  through  is  too  singular  to  be  esteemed  the 
result  of  accident.  Bertling,  Wendt,  and  Spitta  all  argued 
for  the  connection  of  7:  15  ff.  with  chapter  5,  but  in  manifest 
ignorance  of  Norris'  much  earher  argument  for  the  trans- 
position of  chapter  5  after  chapter  6,  on  largely  identical 
grounds,  though  principally  because  of  the  chronological 
difficulties  of  the  present  order.  The  present  writer,  after 
arguing  for  the  transposition  of  chapter  14,  had  the  mingled 
pleasure  and  mortification  of  finding  himself  anticipated  in 
almost  every  detail  by  Spitta.  Such  things  must  be  expected 
where  there  is  a  prima  facie  case.  But  the  anticipations  are 
earlier  still.  Norris  appends  a  paragraph  to  his  article  ex- 
pressing his  surprise  to  find  himself  forestalled  by  Ludolphus 

1  Professor  Wendt  has  restated  his  views  on  the  problem  in  his  volume, 
Das  Johannesei'angeliutn,  1900.  The  analytical  demonstration  of  com- 
posite origin  is  clearer  and  stronger  than  ever.  One  cannot  say  as  much  of 
the  synthesis.  The  Apostle  as  author  of  the  Epistles  and  the  discourses  of 
the  Gospel  is  as  improbable  a  character  as  ever.  • 


502  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

de  Saxonica,  author  of  a  fourteenth-century  Vita  Christi, 
"  who  seems  to  take  it  for  granted  that  Jn.  6  should  precede 
Jn.  5."  Spitta,  as  we  have  seen,  scarcely  a  year  after  the 
publication  of  his  proposed  rearrangement  of  Jn.  18:  12-27, 
viz.,  18:  12  f.,  19-24,  14-18,  256  ff.,  is  shown  by  Mrs.  Lewis' 
fortunate  discovery  at  Sinai  to  be  merely  repeating  the  work 
of  a  second-century  translator. 

After  such  a  discovery  one  could  not  but  prolong  the 
search,  to  see  if  the  second  century  had  not  other  writers  able 
in  like  manner  with  the  scribe  of  Syr.  ®'"-  to  anticipate  the 
keenness  of  the  nineteenth-century  expert,  w^hether  by  the 
critic's  method  of  conjecture  based  on  internal  evidence,  or 
because  possessed  of  unexplained  sources  of  information. 
Our  first  thought  would  be  of  the  work  of  Tatian  in  com- 
bining the  four  Gospels  into  a  continuous  narrative.  Tatian's 
Diatessaron,  recently  brought  to  light,  affords  us  a  text  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel,  practically  complete,  descending  from  a 
date  as  remote  as  the  radical  criticism  of  but  a  few  years  ago 
was  willing  to  admit  for  the  origin  of  the  Gospel  itself.  Does 
the  order  adopted  in  the  Diatessaron  throw  any  light  upon 
the  "apparent  displacements"  of  John? 

On  the  question  of  the  plan  adopted  by  Tatian  in  arrang- 
ing the  contents  of  the  Diatessaron,  we  are  glad  to  have  the 
authority  of  Zahn,  who  in  his  attempt  at  reconstruction  ar- 
rived at  substantially  the  same  order  for  its  contents  as  we 
now  find  them  possessing  in  the  Arabic  text.  After  examin- 
ing the  order  with  a  view  to  discovering  Tatian's  method  of 
procedure,  Zahn  reached  the  conclusion  that 

"in  general  Tatian  has  given  a  decided  preference  to  the  first  and 
fourth  gospels  over  the  other  two  in  fixing  the  order  of  events  men- 
tioned by  more  than  one  evangelist,  and  this  for  the  obvious  reason 
that,  being  of  the  number  of  the  Twelve,  and  actively  concerned 
in  the  events  they  were  recording,  they  would  be  more  likely  to  be 
correct  in  their  descrijjtion  of  them.    Where  a  choice  had  to  be 


DISLOCATIONS  OF  MATERIAL  503 

made  between  the  first  and  fourth,  he  gave  the  preference  to  St. 
John's  order,  jjrobaljly  because  that  cvangeHst  WTote  later,  and 
with  a  knowledge  of  what  St.  Matthew  had  already  written."  ^ 

To  this  restatement  and  indorsement  of  Zahn's  general 
conclusions  Mr.  Hill  appends  a  very  careful  discussion  of 
cases  of  displacement  within  the  limits  of  an  individual 
gospel,  supplemented  by  a  table  (Appendix  II)  showing  the 
disposition  made  of  the  entire  contents  of  all  the  Gospels. 

According  to  Hill: — 

"  Most  of  these  displacements  may  be  attributed  to  one  or  more 
of  the  following  causes:  (i)  Tatian  preferred  the  order  of  the  event 
as  given  by  another  evangelist;  (2)  in  relating  two  events  which 
occurred  simultaneously  Tatian  considered  himself  free  to  put 
either  first,  as  seemed  best  to  fit  with  his  narrative,  since  in  chang- 
ing the  evangelist's  order  he  was  not  chronologically  wrong;  (3)  in 
the  case  of  short  comments  by  the  evangelist  himself  Tatian  in- 
serted them  anywhere  where  they  would  fit  in  conveniently;  (4)  he 
permitted  himself  to  make  slight  internal  transpositions  to  improve 
the  order  of  his  narrative;  (5)  where  two  discourses  of  a  similar 
nature  occur  in  different  gospels  Tatian  has  sometimes  blended 
them  together,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  from  their  respective  settings 
they  appear  to  have  been  spoken  at  different  dates  or  places;  (6)  in 
one  or  two  instances  Tatian  has  grouped  together  discourses  on 
kindred  subjects — or  different  aspects  of  the  same  subject — as 
though  they  had  been  spoken  in  immediate  succession,  which  does 
not  appear  to  have  been  the  case;  (7)  having  identified  portions  of 
two  gospels,  he  has  inferred  that  the  parts  which  respectively  follow 
them  must  have  also  happened  at  the  same  time  and  place,  and  has 
interwoven  them  accordingly."  - 

With  all  this  as  describing  the  method  of  Tatian  "in  fixing 
the  order  of  events  mentioned  by  more  than  one  eva)igelist" 
we  find  ourselves  in  accord,  as  well  as  with  the  inference 

1  From  The  Diatessaron  of  Tatian,  by  J.  Hamlyn  Hill,  Introduction,  p.  26, 
quoting  Zahn. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  31. 


504  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

drawn  that,  with  the  possible  exception  of  the  identification 
of  the  Purging  of  the  Temple  in  Jn.  2 :  13-22  with  that  of  the 
Synoptists,  Tatian's  changes  of  order  of  this  kind  are  not  due 
to  any  lingering  oral  tradition,  but  are  purely  harmonistic. 
What  we  have  to  do  with  is  a  totally  different  class  of  dis- 
placements, distinguished  (i)  as  being  limited  to  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  Tatian's  principal  standard  of  order;  (2)  as  not  due 
to  adjustment  to  the  Synoptists,  (a)  because  it  is  Tatian's 
principle  to  do  the  reverse  of  this,  (b)  because  they  occur  in 
passages  which  for  the  most  part  have  no  synoptic  parallel; 
(3)  as  not  due  to  any  of  the  enumerated  causes,  such  as  might 
partly  cover  rearrangements  independent  of  correspondence 
with  other  Gospels.     In  fact,  they  are  neither  "short  com- 
ments," nor  "slight,"  nor  mere  collocations  of  "discourses 
on  kindred  subjects,"  nor  have  they  been  carried  over  with 
other  transposed  material.     On  the  contrary,  if  we  take, 
e.  g.,  the  conversation  with  the  Samaritan  woman,  we  shall 
find  its  historical  framework,  viz.,  the  journey,  which  might 
have  been  brought  into  harmonistic  identification  with  some 
synoptic  account  of  Jesus'  movements,  kept  in  place;  while 
the  incident  itself  is  removed  to  Part  lU  of  the  Johannine 
narrative.     More  exactly,  Tatian  leaves  Jn.  4:  1-3^  in  its 
connection  with  3:  22-36,  but  instead  of  continuing,  a:s  we 
should  expect,  with  the  ministry  in  Samaria,  4:4-45^,  he 
takes  out  all  this  and  locates  it  in  the  journey  of  Mk.  7:  31, 
so  that  Jesus,  after  healing  the  daughter  of  the  Syrophenician 
woman,  "came  unto  the  sea  of   Galilee,  towards  [sic]  the 
borders  of  Decapolis   (Mk.   7:30-37)     ,     .     .     and  as  he 
was  passing  through  the  land  of  Samaria  he  came  to  a  city  of 
the  Samaritans  called   Sychar   (Jn.   4:4-42)     .     .     .    'and 
after  the  two  days  Jesus  went  forth  from  thence  and  departed 
into    Galilee,    and     ,     .     .     the    Galileans    received    him 
(43-450)."  ^    But  the  only  incident  of  this  stay  in  Galilee  is 
1  Jn.  4:  456  is  utilized  a  little  farther  on  as  an  editorial  comment. 


DISLOCATIONS  OF  MATERIAL  505 

the  Healing  of  the  Leper,  Mk.  1:41-45.^  Jesus  passes  on 
immediately  to  a  feast  at  Jerusalem,  vi/c.,  that  of  the  lifth 
chapter  of  John,  which  here  follows.  Relatively  to  the  Gospel 
of  John  the  result  is  to  transpose,  not  only  the  Samaritan 
ministry,  Jn.  4:  4-42,  but  Jn.  5:  1-47  as  well,  whose  relation 
we  have  seen  to  be,  not  with  the  Galilean  ministry  which  it 
now  interrupts,  but  with  a  subsequent  feast  in  Jn.  7  in  con- 
nection with  this  very  chai)ter.  Is  it  not  possible  that  we 
have  here  an  explanation  of  the  unexplained  transposition 
which  Norris  was  so  surprised  to  lind  in  Ludolph  de  Saxonica  ? 
For  Tatian's  Diaiessaron  circulated  in  an  ancient  High  Ger- 
man and  Latin  bilingual  translation  as  early  as  the  ninth  cen- 
tury." 

But  neither  Jn.  4:  4-42  nor  Jn.  5:  1-47  has  any  synoptic 
parallel,  in  "subject  of  discourse"  or  similarity  of  incident, 
close  enough  to  influence  Tatian.  He  could  have  let  either 
remain  precisely  where  it  stood  in  position  relative  to  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  so  far  as  the  rest  of  his  material  was  con- 
cerned. Nor  is  he  influenced  by  a  desire  to  coordinate  the 
Healing  of  the  Centurion's  Son,  Jn.  4:  48-54,  with  its  Synop- 
tic paraflel  (Mt.  8:4-i3=Lk.  7:1-10);  for  the  two  are  to 
him  entirely  independeht  incidents.""*  Either  reflecting  on 
the  early  particularism  of  Jesus,  Mt.  10:  5;  15:  24,  he  was 
driven  by  historico-critical  motives  to  disregard  the  order  of 
his  supposedly  dominant  authority,  or — he  had  reason  to 
think  these  incidents  came  later. 

1  Embellished  by  the  substitution  of  Lk.  5:12  for  Mk.  i:  40,  and  Lk.  5: 
156,  16  for  the  last  clause  of  Mk.  i:  45.  But,  although  Tatian  brings  down 
this  healing  of  the  leper  of  Mk.  i:  40-45  to  a  date  and  circumstances  almost 
identical  with  those  of  the  leper  healing  of  Lk.  17:  11-19  he  makes  no  identi- 
fication of  the  two,  for  this  would  of  course  have  involved  an  alteration  of  the 
text. 

^Cf.  Sievers,  Tatian,  1872,  pp.  i  ff. 

3  He  places  Jn.  4:  48-54  before  Lk.  4:  44;  Mt.  4:  13-16,  as  the  first 
event  of  the  Galilean  ministrj'.  The  data  of  time  and  place  in  Jn.  4:  46 
compelled  this. 


5o6  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

We  need  only  tabulate  Tatian's  resultant  order  for  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  underscoring  transposed  material,  to  see  how 
inadequate  are  the  causes  thus  far  suggested  to  account  for 
the  changes.     The  order  is  as  follows: 

(§  i)  Jn.  1:1-5,^  7-28,  29-31,  32-34,  35-51;  2:1-11;  2 
3:  22-4:  3a  ("and  he  left  Judea"). 

(§ii)  4:46-54  (2 :  23^-25)  ;=»  6:16,4  ^h-^a,  56-9,  10,12-13, 
14-18,  19a,  2ih,  22-71. 

(§  iii)  4:  4-450  (to  "the  Galileans  received  him");  5:  1-47; 

(4:45^)-'  ^ 

(§  iv)  7:1,  2-ioa,  10&-31  (5:ia);^  2:  14a,  i^h-iS,  16, 
17-22;  3:  1-21;  7:31-52;'  8:12-11:57;  12:  if.,  9-11,  3a, 
36-6,  76,  8a,  i6,«  12  f.,  17  f.,  19-360,  42-50,  366-41. 

(§  v)   13:1-20,   2ia,   22,   23-29,  30-32,  33-36,  376,   38a; 

14:1-310,     316;     15:1-18:2,     40,     46-9,      10  f.,     120,     126-17, 

180,  186,  19-250,  260,  266,  280,  286,  29  f.,  31-380  (to  "and 
went  out  again  unto  the  Jews"),  39  f.;  19:2,  36-15,  160, 
166,  170,  i7f,  23  f.,  19-22,^  25-27,  28-290,  300,  306,31-37, 
386,  38(^-42;  20:2-17,  18-19,  206-21:24,  25. 

In  the  above  table  the  divisions  clearly  marked  by  the 
subject-matter  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  are  indicated  by  §-marks, 

1  Jn.  i:  6=Lk.  3:  1-3,  omitted  as  duplicate. 

22:12  omitted,  probably  as=Mt.  4:  13-16,  which  follows  Jn.  4:  46-54; 
2:  13  is  purely  connective  and  duplicate. 

3  This  editorial  comment  Tatian  has  adapted  to  his  own  uses  by  omitting 
verse  23a.  He  appends  it  to  the  first  section  of  the  Galilean  ministry  before 
the  sending  of  the  Seventy. 

*  6: Id  is  combined  with  Mt.  14:  13a.  The  interruptions  and  slight  omis- 
sions in  6:  1-2 1  are,  of  course,  due  to  the  closeness  of  the  parallel  here  inter- 
woven from  the  Synoptists. 

5  Another  editorial  comment  adapted  by  Tatian  to  his  own  uses,  in  con- 
nection with  the  Feeding  of  the  four  thousand. 

6  Utilized  a  second  time  to  introduce  Lk.  17:  11  ff. 

7  This  verse  (7:  31)  is  repeated.     See  above. 

8  The  changes  of  order  and  omissions  in  12:  1-16,  including  the  omission 
of  14  f.,  are  to  be  accounted  for  as  in  6:  1-21. 

9  On  chapters  18,  19  see  the  preceding  note. 


DISLOCATIONS  OF  MATERIAL  507 

separating  the  content  into  periods:  (§  i)  the  Ministry  of 
John;  (§  ii)  the  GaHlcan  ministry  of  Jesus;  (§  iii)  a  Journey 
through  Samaria  and  (laHlcc,  and  visit  to  Jerusalem  (r/. 
Lk.  9:51-56;  10:38;  and  especially  17:11);  (§  iv)  the 
Pera?an  Ministry;  (§  v)  the  Passion  and  Resurrection. 
These  arc,  of  course,  entirely  broken  through  by  Tatian, 
who  multipUes  journeys  between  Jerusalem  and  Galilee  in 
the  interest  of  harmonization.  But  the  distinction  we  have 
drawn  between  transi)Ositions  which  can  be  accounted  for 
on  the  principles  established  by  Zahn  and  Hill,  and  those 
which  are  impossible  to  reduce  under  them,  is  unmistakably 
apparent.  WTierever  the  synoptic  account  runs  closely 
parallel,  Tatian  in  the  main  reduces  it  to  the  order  of  John, 
showing  his  regard  for  this  Gospel  not  merely  thus,  but  by 
the  reverential  care  with  which  he  has  worked  in  almost 
every  word  of  it  at  the  expense  of  the  Synoptists,  the  only 
omitted  portions  being  mere  connective  material  or  editorial 
comment,  and  the  rare  instances  where  the  fuller  account  of 
the  Synoptic  writers  made  it  impossible  to  introduce  some 
word  or  two  of  the  Johannine  story  without  a  degree  of 
tautology  so  palpable  as  to  be  absurd.  The  omissions  from 
John  scarcely  amount  in  all  to  a  dozen  verses,^  and  the  trans- 
positions, if  we  set  aside  the  three  great  masses  of  material 
underscored  in  §§  iii  and  iv,  are  practically  non-existent, 
affecting  only  the  rearrangement  of  a  brief  sentence  or  two, 
to  adapt  it  to  the  composite  story.- 

1  Of  course,  we  do  not  include  7:  53-8:  11,  the  spurious  fragment  on  the 
woman  taken  in  adulter}',  which  formed  no  part  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  in 
Tatian's  day. 

2  A  complete  list  of  these  minor  transpositions  is  as  follows:  (i)  Jn.  12:  1-16 
(anointing  in  Bethany  and  triumphal  entry),  (a)  Jn.  12:  9-1 1,  which  de- 
scribes the  circumstances  of  the  anointing,  precedes  instead  of  following  it, 
attaching  to  the  corresponding  element  of  Mk.  14:  ^a.  This  is  clearly,  as 
Mr.  Hill  has  noted,  "for  the  sake  of  neatness  in  the  combined  account." 
{b)  Verse  16,  the  editorial  comment  on  14  f.,  is  necessarily  attached  to  the 


5o8  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Entirely  different  motives  must  have  controlled  in  the 
transposition  of  (i)  the  Purging  of  the  Temple  and  Dialogue 
with  Nicodemus  (2:14-3:21),  (2)  the  Samaritan  ministry 
(4:4-450),  (3)  the  Feast  at  Jerusalem  (5:1-47),  (4)  Jesus' 
Self-vindication  (12:42-50).  Of  these  five  masses  of  ma- 
terial 2:  14-22  and  3:  1-21  are  transposed  from  the  period 
of  the  Baptist's  ministry  to  separate  occasions  of  the  final 
-stay  in  Jerusalem  and  vicinity;  4:4-450  and  5:  1-47,  from 
the  Galilean  ministry  to  the  journey  through  Samaria  and 
Perea  after  the  crisis  in  Galilee;  and  12 :  42-50,  from  after  to 
before  verses  366-41.  In  only  one  of  these  instances  is  there 
a  Synoptic  parallel  close  enough  to  suggest  harmonization 
as  a  motive,  and  in  this  (2:  14-22)  it  is  difficult,  considering 
the  ease  with  which  modern  harmonists  resort  to  the  stand- 
ard device  of  two  temple-cleansings,  to  imagine  that  Tatian, 
who  resorts  to  similar  devices  to  a  still  higher  degree,  should 
have  been  actuated  by  harmonistic  moti\es  alone. ^  The 
question  remains:  Was  Tatian  a  higher  critic,  reasoning 
from  internal  evidence  and  the  natural  probabilities  of  the 
case;  or  had  he  external  evidence,  oral  or  written,  independ- 
ent of  our  Synoptic  Gospels?  The  answer  is  to  be  found 
only  by  careful  scrutiny  of  the  transpositions.  If  the  con- 
text itself  is  of  a  nature  easily  to  suggest  the  propriety  of 
their  removal,  while  more  profound  investigation  shows  a 
latent  suitability  to  the  connection  in  which  we  have  been 
accustomed  to  read  them,  they  will  be  due  to  arbitrary  con- 
substitute,  Mt.  21:  3?'-5,  and  thus  loses  its  relative  position.  (2)  The  divi- 
sion of  Jesus'  garments  by  the  executioners,  19:  23  f.,  precedes  instead  of 
following  the  account  of  the  title  on  the  cross,  verses  20-22,  the  order  of 
Matthew  being  here  followed  (exceptionally)  in  preference  to  John,  obvi- 
ously because  it  purports  to  be  chronological,  while  that  of  John  does  not. 
(3)  In  three  instances  (2:  23^-25;  4:  456;  5:  la)  Tatian  has  utilized  brief 
touches  of  editorial  comment  for  his  own  purposes. 

1  As  we  have  seen,  even  Mr.  Hill  admits  this  as  an  exceptional  case  where 
tradition  might  have  had  an  influence. 


DISLOCATIONS  OF  MATERIAL  509 

jecture  on  Tatian's  part.  Wc  may  be  astonished  at  tlie  bold- 
ness and  skill  of  this  early  precursor  of  German  criticism, 
but  it  will  be  certain  that  the  critic  must  consent  to  see  him- 
self both  anticipated  and  outdone  in  his  chosen  field.  If, 
per  contra,  the  context-  gives  no  such  superficial  suggestion 
of  displacement,  but  on  closer  scrutiny  re\'cals  a  deep-seated 
superiority  in  the  order  obtained  ajtcr  the  transposition, 
especially  if  this  phenomenon  be  accompanied  by  apparent 
lack  of  appreciation  on  Tatian's  part  of  the  real  nature  and 
effect  of  the  change,  we  may  infer  that  he  possessed  some 
source  of  external"  evidence  inaccessible  to  us. 

It  will  be  sim])ler  to  consider  first  the  removals,  and  after- 
ward the  new  location  assigned,  and,  beginning  with  the 
case  most  favorable  to  the  idea  of  unsupported  conjecture  as 
Tatian's  motive,  we  may  look  first  at  the  fifth  instance,  the 
removal  of  12:42-50.  Wendt  and  others,  as  we  know,  had 
pointed  out  the  incongruity  of  the  situation  in  i2:44ff.,^ 
though  even  this  was  disputed  by  so  able  a  scholar  as  Holtz- 
mann;  but  it  seems  to  have  needed  the  superior  acumen  of 
Tatian  to  perceive  that  the  real  break  is  after  verse  41,  all 
that  follows  serving  only  to  weaken  the  force  of  the  dramatic 
conclusion  which  quotes  the  prediction  of  Isaiah.-  Let  us 
credit  Tatian  with  the  eye  to  perceive  this,  and  return  to  the 
removals  from  chapters  1-6. 

Let  it  be  granted  that  Tatian  removed  2:  14-22  to  com- 
bine it  with  Alt.  21 :  12  ft'.,  and  omitted  verse  12  as  dui:)licat- 
ing  Mt.  4:  13-16;  we  have  still  to  explain  why  the  Passover 
visit  to  Jerusalem,  2:  13,  23-25,  is  canceled,  and  the  dialogue 
with  Nicodemus,  3:  1-21,  removed,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
the  journey  from  Cana  of  Galilee  (2:11)  to  "the  Judean 

1  Lehre  Jesii,  I,  p.  236. 

2  For  an  independent  appreciation  of  the  character  of  this  locus  classicus 
of  the  New  Testament  writers  see  the  review  of  Jiilicher's  Gleichnissrcden, 
by  Sanday,  in  Journal  of  Theological  Studies,  January,  1900. 


5IO  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

country"  (3:  22)  is  retained.  Surely  we  have  all  read  this 
entire  context  many  times  with  the  mental  removal  of  the 
incident  of  the  temple-cleansing,  2: 14-22,  into  the  connec- 
tion of  its  synoptic  parallels,  Mt.  21 :  12  ff.,  etc.,  and  felt  no 
incongruity  in  the  remainder.  Yet  how  extraordinarily 
felicitous,  for  a  purely  accidental  result,  is  the  connection 
which  ensues  when  we  pass  directly  from  2:  i-ii  to  3:  22- 
4:  3,  and  thence  back  to  Cana  and  Capernaum  in  4:  46-54! 
No  longer  does  the  expression  "came  into  the  Judean  coun- 
try" sound  strangely,  when  Galilee,  not  Jerusalem,  is  the 
point  of  departure.  Moreover,  the  entire  period  of  ministry 
before  the  imprisonment  of  John,  a  unit  save  for  the  episode 
of  the  wedding  at  Cana,  2:  i-ii,^  becomes  natural  and  in- 
telligible, a  prelude  to  the  opening  scenes  of  the  synoptic  story, 
which  throws  a  flood  of  light  upon  it  instead  of  contradict- 
ing it,  and  removes  the  serious  difficulties  of  the  chronology. 
But  the  greatest  surprise  is  the  transposition  of  the  Dialogue 
with  Nicodemus  (3:  1-21)  into  the  midst  of  chapter  7,  where 
verse  31  is  repeated  to  accommodate  its  insertion.  With 
all  their  acumen  not  one  of  our  modern  critics  had  ob- 
served the  anachronistic  assumptions  of  this  paragraph  in 
its  present  context.  But  Tatian,  if  his  transposition  was  based 
on  critical  reflection,  observed  (a)  that  it  is  not  natural  that 
Nicodemus  should  speak  as  in  3:2,  when  no  particular 
"sign"  done  in  Jerusalem  had  been  mentioned;  (b)  that  the 
dialogue  suggests  longer  and  fuller  acquaintance  with  Jesus' 
teaching  than  the  assumed  circumstances  admit;  (c)  that 
Jesus'  reference  to  his  impending  rejection  and  death  and 

1  Treated  by  Delff  as  secondary  (Beitrage,  p.  iS)  on  the  following  grounds: 
(i)  the  impossibility  of  the  journey  from  Bethabara  to  Cana  in  the  time 
assigned  (2:  i);  (2)  the  impossibility  that  Jesus'  disciples,  who  had  only  be- 
come such  a  day  or  two  preceding,  should  have  been  invited  (2:  4);  (3)  Jesus 
appears  in  a  character  (2:  5)  such  as  belongs  only  to  the  period  after  2:  12; 
(4)  the  character  of  the  a-qiieiov  in  contrast  with  all  the  other  Johannine 
ariixeia. 


DISLOCATIONS  OF  MATERIAL  511 

the  judgment  to  come,  3:  11-15,  18  ff.,  is  incongruous  with 
3:  26-30  and  the  whole  period  of  the  early  ministry,  agreeing 
better  with  Jn.  8:  15;  12:47  ^m  ^^id  the  period  when  Jesus' 
life  was  sought.  Similarly  it  is  not  dilTicult  to  perceive,  when 
our  attention  has  been  called  to  the  jact,  that  there  are  serious 
obstacles  to  placing  a  Samaritan  ministry  before  the  very 
beginning  of  the  ministry  in  Galilee.  Jn.  4:4-42  becomes 
incongruous  at  that  time  in  its  historical  substance.  We 
should  expect  the  Galileans  to  raise  the  cry  of  Jn.  8:48. 
And  what  of  the  public,  unreserved  recognition  of  Jesus  as 
the  Messiah,  4:  26,  42  ?  The  difficulty  is  surely  great  enough, 
even  if  we  place  it  with  Tatian  ajter  Caesarea  Philippi,  and 
the  dealings  with  the  Samaritans  ajter  the  restriction  of 
Mt.  10:  5  f.  had  been  corrected  by  the  experience  of  Mt.  15: 
24-28,  and  Jesus'  attitude  toward  Samaritans  had  altered 
(Lk.  9:51  ff.).  A  historical  critic  of  the  first  order  might 
conceivably  have  been  mo\-ed  by  considerations  such  as 
these  to  place  the  incidents  of  Jn.  3:  1-2 1  and  4:  4-42  later 
on  in  his  "  Life  of  Christ."  But  was  this  Tatian's  idea  ?  Ap- 
parently not,  since  he  retained  4:43-45  (except  verse  456), 
which  he  would  surely  have  treated  as  he  does  2:  23-25  if  he 
had  acted  on  critical  grounds. 

Our  Matthew,  the  same  that  Tatian  employs,  has  no  rela- 
tion to  the  order  of  Jn.  2-4.  But  we  need  only  remove  the 
portions  known  to  be  derived  from  Mark,  viz.,  Mt.  4:  18  ff. 
and  8:  1-4,  inclosing  the  Sermon  on  the  Alount,  which  all 
critics  recognize  as  prematurely  placed,  to  come  ujjon  an 
underlying  connection  in  Alt.  4:12  ff. ;  8:  5  ff.,  which  bears  a 
remarkable  resemblance  to  that  of  Jn.  3:22-4:3,  46-54. 
The  correspondence  becomes  all  the  stronger  when  the 
editorial  comment  of  Mt.  4:  14-17  is  removed,  and  Jn.  2:  12 
brought  into  the  relation  with  4:46-54  which  the  handling 
of  its  substitute,  Mt.  4:  12  f.,  by  Tatian  suggests.  Nor  does 
it  stoj)  at  this  point.     Take  out  the  next  passage  borrowed 


512  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

from  Mark,  viz.,  8:14-16  (  =  Mk.  1:29-34),  with  the  edi- 
torial comment,  verse  17,  and  what  follows?  The  verses  18- 
22,  which  form  so  curious  an  exception  to  the  chain  of  ten 
miracles  common  to  Mark,  in  Mt.  8-9,  and  which  begin: 
''Now  when  Jesus  saw  great  multitudes  about  him  he  gave 
commandment  to  depart  unto  the  other  side."  Precisely  as 
in  Tatiaii's  order,  Jn.  6:  i  £f.  follows  upon  4:  46-54!  What 
can  account  for  these  facts  more  simply  than  the  supposition 
that  Tatian  was  influenced  in  his  arrangement  of  the  order 
by  some  unknown  source — let  us  say  the  Ev.  Hchr. — in 
which  the  order  underlying  IMatthew  and  ^Slark  still  sur- 
vived unchanged  ?  If  so  there  will  be  nothing  strange  in  the 
resultant  order  seeming  often  to  improve  upon  our  John,  for, 
as  Holtzmann  has  shown, ^  this  Gospel  has  a  relation  not  yet 
explained  to  the  Ev.  Hebr. 

We  need  not  raise  Delff's  question  whether  the  marriage 
in  Cana,  2:  i-ii,  forms  part  of  the  original  story,  for  the 
"original"  story  lies  farther  back  than  we  are  now  attempt- 
ing to  go.  The  arguments  brought  against  this  episode 
would  lose  much  of  their  force  if  we  removed  it  to  the  posi- 
tion of  4 :  46a,  in  the  inten-al  between  the  close  of  the  work 
of  baptizing  with  John  and  the  opening  of  that  in  Capernaum; 
cf.  3:  24  (suggesting  the  omission  of  a  parallel  to  Mt.  4:  12) 
and  4:  54.  Such  transposition,  however,  is  a  mere  possibil- 
ity, unsupported  by  Tatian,  who  connects  2 :  i-i  i  with  3:222. 
Few  competent  judges,  however,  will  deny  the  improved  con- 
nection which  results  in  Jn.  1-4  from  the  removals  made  by 
Tatian.  His  resultant  order  for  §§  i-iii  gives  the  story  of 
the  pre-Galilean  and  Galilean  ministries  as  follows: 

(§  i)  Prologue,  i:  1-18;  ^  Jesus  and  the  Baptist,  i:  19-51; 
[2:  i-ii]  ^  3:  22-4:  3a  ("and  he  left  Judaea"). 

1  Einleilung,  p.  441. 

2  Verses  6-8  and  15  are  assigned  by  us  to  R.    See  above,  p.  458. 

3  See  above,  p.  510,  note. 


DISLOCATIONS  OF  MATERIAL  513 

(§  ii)  Jesus  begins  his  Work,  4:46-54  (Healing  of  Noble- 
man's Son  in  Capernaum);  6:  1-7 1  (Feeding  of  5,000,  Walk- 
ing on  Sea,  Discourse  in  Capernaum,  Confession  of  Peter). 

(§  iii)  Samaritan  Ministry  and  First  Visit  to  Jerusalem, 
4:  4-45^  (to  "the  Galileans  received  him");  5:  1-47.' 

It  is  certainly  supi)Osal:)le  that  Tatian  reached  this  sur- 
prisingly consistent  and  reasonable  result  by  mere  harmon- 
istic  conjecture.  If  so,  two  preliminary  inferences  may  al- 
ready be  set  down:  (i)  His  abilities  as  a  historical  critic  have 
been  immensely  underrated.  (2)  He  was  far  less  bound 
than  Zahn  and  Hill  suppose  by  the  assumption  of  superior 
historical  accuracy  on  the  i)art  of  John  the  "eye-witness." 
It.  remains  for  determination  hereafter  (a)  whether  this  order 
really  heals  the  "apparent  displacements"  of  the  Johannine 
material,  and  (b)  whether  it  agrees  with  the  relation  we  have 
seen  to  subsist  fundamentally  between  the  order  of  this  Gos- 
pel as  a  whole  and  that  of  Mark.  INIeantime  we  have  to  con- 
sider §  iv  which  coN'crs  the  period  corresponding  to  the  so- 
called  "Pera^an  Ministry"  of  ]\Ik.  9  f.  =Lk.  10-18.  For  the 
section  on  the  final  Passover  in  Jerusalem  (§  v)  naturally 
contains  no  change  of  order,  the  problem  here  requiring  only 
the  insertion  of  the  fare\vell  discourse  and  prayer  into  the 
S}Tioptic  story. 

The  transj)Osition  of  Jn.  12:42-50  from  after  to  before 
12:  366-41,  unlike  that  of  2:  14-22  (Purging  of  the  Temple) 
which  Tatian  removes  to  a  position  nearer  to,  though  not  at 
the  final  Passover,'  is  of  course  quite  independent  of  Synoptic 
influence.  Tatian  shows  the  consciousness  by  his  change  of 
reading  in  verse  42  {kul  for  o/lico?  fievTOi)  that  this  verse  could 

1  By  including  the  descriptive  material  4:  43-45  (verse  456  is  used  for 
editorial  purposes  at  the  end  of  chapter  5)  Tatian  brings  Jesus  back  to 
Galilee  before  going  up  to  Jerusalem.  Cf.  Mk.  7:  24  IT.,  9:  30  fT.,  and 
Lk.  9:  5 iff. 

2  In  Tatian's  order  Jn.  2:  14-22  is  followed  by  Jn.  10:  22,  40  (Dedication); 
11:  I  ff.,  54;  Lk.  g:  51  iT.  and  finally  Jn.  12:  i  ff.  (final  Passover). 

Fourth  Gospel — 7,1, 


514  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

not  follow  (unchanged)  after  verse  36a.  It  may  well  be  that 
here  he  is  simply  trying,  as  others  have  since  tried,  to  heal  a 
manifest  dislocation,^  At  all  events  this  slight  internal  trans- 
position manifestly  belongs  in  a  different  category  from  those 
of  §§  i-iii.,  and  does  not  even  fully  heal  the  disorder  of  chap- 
ter 12.  We  cannot  infer  more  from  it  than  a  perception  on 
Tatian's  part  that  verses  36^-41  containing  the  expHcit  state- 
ment of  Jesus'  final  withdrawal  from  public  teaching,  fol- 
lowed by  the  evangelist's  comment  on  its  result,  cannot  be 
followed  by  a  resumption  of  the  teaching  (albeit  without 
auditors)  in  verses  44-50.    Even  this,  however,  is  significant. 

If  now  we  return  to  the  three  elements  excerpted  by  Tatian 
from  the  Galilean  ministry  to  insert  at  a  later  point,  viz., 
Samaritan  Woman  (4:  4-45),  Outbreak  of  Opposition  (chap- 
ter 5),  and  Interview  with  Nicodemus  (3:  1-21)  it  will  be  in 
order  to  put  the  following  questions:  (i)  What  results  from 
the  new  order  in  the  intrinsic  consistency  of  the  Johannine 
narrative?  (2)  Is  it  brought  into  closer  relation  with  syn- 
optic story?  (3)  If  so,  how  is  the  relation  to  be  accounted 
for? 

The  incident  of  the  Samaritan  Woman  we  have  already 
seen  to  be  the  Johannine  counterpart  of  the  synoptic  story  of 
the  Syrophenician,  identically  placed  by  Matthew  and  Mark 
ajter  the  material  corresponding  to  Jn.  6.  Luke,  however, 
cancels  this  Markan  ministry  to  Gentiles,  and  inserts  in  nearly 
the  same  relative  position  (Lk.  9:  51  ff.)  a  visit  of  Jesus  with 
the  Twelve  to  "  a  certain  village  of  the  Samaritans."  So  far  as 
the  intrinsic  consistency  and  logical  sequence  of  the  Fourth 

1  In  the  original  form  of  the  present  chapter  it  was  proposed  to  further 
transpose  12:  1-19  after  20-360  giving  the  order  11:  47-53,  54-57;  12:  20- 
36a,  1-19,  42-50,  366-41.  Thus  the  Greeks  of  12:  20  ff.  would  approach 
Jesus  in  his  seclusion  at  Ephraim  (11:  54)  through  his  intimates  (12:  20  ff.), 
and  the  scenes  of  12:  20  ff.  be  prepared  for  in  11:  54-57  as  those  of  the  visit 
at  Tabernacles  (5:  2-47;  7:  15-30)  in  7:  11-13.  But  cf.  Wellhausen  {Evang. 
Joh.,  pp.  56-58)  and  see  below. 


DISLOCATIONS  OF  MATERIAL  515 

Gospel  is  concerned,  slight  fault  comparatively  can  be  found 
with  its  present  position.  True  it  is  not  historically  conceiv- 
able that  Jesus  should  engage  in  such  a  colloquy  on  such  a 
subject  under  the  supposed  circumstances;  nor  that  he  should 
publicly  announce  himself  to  the  Samaritans  as  the  Messiah, 
and  "the  Savior  of  the  World"  (4:  26,  42).  But  we  have  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  the  fourth  evangelist  was  in  the  least 
troubled  by  such  reflections.  Indeed  the  evidence  of  i :  29, 
36,  45,  49  is  conclusive  that  he  did  not.  Similarly  Mt.  10:  5  f. 
is  inconsistent  with  this  earl}'  ministry  in  Samaria.  But  this 
is  just  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  Jewish-Christian  Gos- 
pel with  which  the  Ephesian  evangelist  is  completely  out  of 
sympathy.  Tatian,  then,  was  certainly  not  moved  by  the 
lack  of  consistency  of  this  incident  with  its  context  to  transfer 
it  to  another.^  If  he  had  the  sagacity  to  perceive  its  sub- 
tle relation  to  the  Markan  incident  of  the  Syrophenician 
Woman  he  may  have  effected  the  transfer  as  the  most  astute 
of  harmonists,  one  who  at  the  same  time  had  the  keen  eye  of 
the  trained  historical  critic.  The  third  alternative  is  that 
some  other  evangelic  writing,  accessible  to  him  but  not  to  us, 
enabled  him  to  perceive  this  relation.  We  have  suggested 
the  Ev.  Hehr. 

Next  in  Tatian's  revised  order  of  Johannine  incidents 
comes  the  Visit  to  Jerusalem  at  Pentecost  of  chapter  5.  Here 
the  context  itself  gives  evidence  of  structural  dislocation. 
Hitzig  wished  to  place  this  chapter  after  chapter  3.  Norris 
after  chapter  6.  Independently  of  these,  and  to  some  extent 
of  one  another,   Bertling,   Wendt,   and   Spitta  successively 

1  Mr.  Hill's  statement  regarding  Tatian's  apparently  motiveless  transfer 
of  this  incident  from  Jesus'  northward  journey  in  Jn.  4:  1-3,  to  the  journey 
"from  Tyre  and  Sidon  through  Decapolis  to  the  sea  of  Galilee"  of  Mk.  7: 
24-37  's  ^s  follows:  "Tatian  seems  to  make  this  happen  on  the  way  from 
Galilee  to  Judaa,  if  we  connect  it  with  the  opening  of  this  chapter;  this  is 
the  reverse  of  John's  order  (Jn.  4:  3).  ^'ct  at  the  close  of  this  visit  (4:  43) 
Jesus  departs  from  Sychar  to  Galilee  as  in  St.  John's  gospel." 


5i6  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

showed  that  the  paragraph  7: 15-24  is  the  real  condusion  of 
chapter  5,  improperly  removed  from  it.  Their  remedy  was 
to  move  the  smaller  fragment  toward  the  larger,  not  con- 
versely. Burton  brought  their  results  into  accord  with  those 
of  Norris  by  proposing  the  order  chapter  6;  chapter  5;  7:  15- 
24,  1-14,  25  ff.  He  added  the  further  transposition  of  7:  45- 
52  after  verse  36,  to  avoid  the  absurdity  that  the  ofhcers  sent 
to  apprehend  Jesus  do  not  report  to  their  superiors  till  several 
days  after.  Here,  then,  was  evidence,  "highly  probable"  in 
the  judgment  even  of  Blass,  of  real  structural  dislocation  of 
the  Gospel. 

How  comes  it  that  the  removal  of  chapter  5  by  Tatian  from 
between  4:  46-54  and  6:  i  ff.  not  only  results  in  a  connection 
as  perfect  as  between  2:11  and  3 :  22  ff.,  but  also  removes  at  a 
stroke  many  of  the  inherent  difficulties  of  matter  and  form 
observed  by  the  critics  ?  What  can  be  more  natural  than  the 
connection  of  4 :  46-54  with  6 :  i  ff.  ?  Jesus  has  done  a  mighty 
work  of  heahng  in  Capernaum.  He  crosses  "to  the  other  side 
of  the  sea  of  Galilee  .  .  .  and  a  great  multitude  followed 
him,  because  they  beheld  the  signs  which  he  did  on  them  that 
were  sick."  Intercalate  chapter  5,  and  we  have  Jesus  in 
Jerusalem  defending  his  life  against  the  rabbis  in  a  great 
dialectic  discourse.  The  occasion,  we  learn  from  an  editorial 
note  of  the  stereotyped  form  (5 :  i),  was  "a  feast  of  the  Jews," 
but  to  this  day  the  dispute  is  unsettled  what  feast,  every  possi- 
ble feast  being  discordant  with  what  immediately  precedes 
(4:35)  and  what  immediately  follows  (6:4).  And  now  the 
discourse  against  the  rabbis  in  the  temple  breaks  off  abruptly, 
without  a  hint  of  how  Jesus  escapes,  or  even  whether  he  did 
escape,  and  (from  Jerusalem)  he  "crossed  over  to  the  other 
side  of  {airrjXdev  irepav)  the  sea  of  Galilee,"  etc.  One  would 
almost  say  in  this  case  Tatian  must  have  seen  the  incongruity 
of  chapter  5  between  4 :  46-54  and  chapter  6,  and  removed  it 
for  that  reason.    And  yet  readers  for  eighteen  centuries  did  not 


DISLOCATIONS  OF  MATERIAL  517 

notice  it.  Harmonists  did  not  notice  it.  Critics  did  not  notice 
it.  Bcrtling,  Wendt,  and  Spitta,  searching  the  Gospel  for  this 
very  matter  of  dislocations,  did  not  notice  it,  even  ajtcr  they 
had  perceived  thai  the  close  oj  chapter  5  must  connect  with 
7 :  15  ff.  There  is,  in  short,  a  partial  rc})air  of  the  dislocation. 
The  sequence  of  events  up  to  the  end  of  the  GaHlean  ministry 
is  restored.  The  broken  parts  of  chapter  5  and  7:  15-24  are 
brought  much  closer  together.  But  they  do  not  meet.  There 
is  no  indication  that  Tatian  had  before  him  any  other  form  of 
the  Fourth  Gosj^el  than  our  own. 

But  was  Jn.  5  simj)ly  carried  over  along  with  Jn.  4:  4-450, 
into  the  period  of  wanderings  at  the  very  close  of  the  Galilean 
ministry?  Or  had  Tatian  some  reason  to  realize  that  its  con- 
tents relate  to  the  same  Growth  of  Opposition  which  Mark 
(prematurely)  introduces  in  Mk.  2:1-3:6,  and  Q  presents 
as  a  series  of  discourses  on  How  they  were  Stumbled  in 
Him,  Mt.  11:  1-12:45  (except  supplements)  =Lk.  7:  18-50; 
II :  14-26?  We  have  one  or  two  hints  that  the  latter  was  the 
case. 

(i)  Between  the  incident  of  the  Samaritan  Woman  (Jn.  4: 
4-450)  and  the  Outbreak  of  Opposition  in  Jerusalem  (Jn.  5) 
Tatian  inserts  the  HeaHng  of  the  Leper  (Lk.  5:12;  Mk.  1:41- 
45a;  Lk.  5:  15&,  16),  the  same  which  immediately  precedes 
the  jMarkan  section  on  the  Growth  of  Opposition,  reflect- 
ing perhaps  the  clause  of  Q  "the  lepers  are  cleansed"  (Mt. 
ii:5=Lk.  7:22). 

(2)  Mark's  own  narrative  continues  in  3:7-35  with  the 
account  of  how  Jesus  dealt  with  the  increasing  multitude  of 
his  disciples,  resisting  the  mistaken  intervention  oj  his  mother 
and  brethren.  But  the  Johannine  parallel  to  this  is  7:  1-14, 
which  both  in  Tatian's  order  and  that  of  our  Fourth  Gospel 
cuts  off  7:  15-24,  the  concluding  paragraph  of  the  Outbreak 
of  Opposition  in  Jerusalem  (cha])ter  5).  Moreover,  indica- 
tions are  not  wholly  wanting  in  the  close  correspondence  of 


5i8  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

Mk,  3:  6  with  Mk,  12:  13,  and  the  different  setting  given  in 
Matthew  and  Luke  to  much  of  the  material  embodied  at  this 
point  of  Mark's  narrative,  that  in  some  other  early  source  it 
was  introduced  at  a  later  period,  perhaps  as  late  as  where 
Tatian  has  placed  it,  between  the  Journey  through  Phenicia 
and  Decapohs  (Mt.  15 :  21-28)  and  the  Second  Miracle  of  the 
Loaves  (Mt.  15:  29-39). 

But  we  must  turn  our  attention  finally  to  Tatian's  third 
great  transposition,  the  removal  of  the  Interview  with  Nico- 
demus  (Jn.  3:  1-2 1)  from  a  position  before  the  opening  of 
the  Ministry  in  Galilee  to  the  middle  of  that  in  Peraea.  It 
is  conceivable  again  that  this  section  {Diatess.  xxxii,  27J-47) 
was  carried  over  in  conjunction  with  the  incident  of  the 
Purging  of  the  Temple  {Diatess.,  xxxii,  i-ii),  although  the 
connecting  link  (Jn.  2 :  23-25)  is  employed  elsewhere  {Diatess. 
XV,  12-14).  The  synoptic  journey  to  Jerusalem  through 
Peraea  and  Jericho  thus  receives  as  its  occasioning  feast  not 
the  final  Passover,  mention  of  which  is  reserved  to  Diatess. 
xxxix,  i=Jn.  12:1,  but  "the  feast  of  Tabernacles"  of 
Jn,  7:  I  ff.  {=Diatess.  xxviii,  1-32).^  But  we  are  more  con- 
cerned with  the  effect  of  the  transposition  upon  the  intrinsic 
consistency  of  the  Johannine  story,  and  its  relation  to  synop- 
tic, than  with  Tatian's  motive.  The  effect  is  as  follows. 
Once  insert  Jn.  3:  1-21  after  7:  30  and  not  only  do  we  have 
better  connection  for  the  section  on  Jesus  and  John  ( Jn.  1-3), 
but  both  the  story  of  the  Visit  at  Tabernacles  (Jn.  7)  and  the 
interjected  Interview  with  Nicodemus  (3:  1-2 1)  lose  their 
inconsistencies  and  become  reciprocally  intelligible.  The 
mighty  works  referred  to  in  3 :  2  no  longer  require  to  be  sup- 

1  Inconsistent  with  this  is  the  clause,  Diatess.  xxx,  31a,  "After  these 
things  was  the  Jews'  feast  of  Unleavened  Bread."  But  these  words  are  not 
found  in  any  of  our  Gospels.  They  are  a  mere  imitation  of  Jn.  5:  i  which 
was  already  employed  in  xxii,  9.  They  may  have  formed  no  part  of  the 
original  Diatessaron. 


DISLOCATIONS  OF  MATERIAL  519 

plied  out  of  nothing.  The  reference  is  to  the  miracle  of 
5:  2  IT.  already  treated  as  tyj)ical  in  7:  3.  Nicodemus'  com- 
ing by  night  is  no  longer  a  moti\cless  timidity;  real  danger 
is  involved  in  open  association  with  the  sabbath-breaker  of 
5:  1-18;  7:  15-24.  Nicodemus'  hints  at  the  high  claims  of 
Jesus  (3:1)  have  good  ground  in  the  discourse  on  the  author- 
ity of  the  Son  of  man  exceeding  that  of  Moses  (5:  19-47). 
Jesus,  on  his  ])art,  is  prepared  to  take  still  higher  ground, 
referring  to  the  unbelief  and  rejection  he  has  met  on  the  ])art 
of  the  teachers  of  Israel  (3:11  f.;  cj.  5:38-47),  })redicting 
his  violent  death  (3:  13-15;  cj.  5:  18;  7:  19),  and  declaring 
the  judgment  that  will  fall  on  the  wilfully  unbelieving  (3: 
16-21;  c}.  5:  27,  30  IT.,  42-47).  How  strange  all  this,  if  as 
yet  he  has  had  nothing  but  acceptance  (2:23;  3:2)!  How 
incomprehensible  the  tone  of  denunciation  of  the  teachers  of 
Israel  as  a  class,  and  the  assumption  of  rejection  and  death 
as  a  foregone  conclusion,  if  in  3 :  26-30  the  joy  of  Jesus' 
universal  welcome  is  still  as  that  which  surrounds  bride- 
groom and  bride!  But  insert  3:  1-2 1  after  7:30,  and  the 
strange  outcome  of  this  lirst  great  conflict  in  Jerusalem  is 
illuminated.  After  the  phihppic  with  which  the  attempt  to 
kill  him  for  sabbath-breaking  had  been  met,  and  the  phari- 
saic  zealots,  though  plotting,  are  cowed  for  a  time  (7:  25-30), 
we  have  the  night  visit  of  the  rabbi,  who  goes  from  it  pre- 
pared to  play  his  part  of  secret  friend  (3:  1-2 1).  The  behef 
of  the  multitude,  wondering  at  the  miracle,  provokes  a  second 
half-hearted  attempt  (7:  31  ff.,  45  ff.),  but  the  very  boldness 
of  Jesus'  aj)peal  (7:33-36)  gives  him  a  partial  acceptance 
with  the  multitude,  while  Nicodemus  plays  the  part  of 
Gamaliel  (Acts  5:33-42)  in  the  Sanhedrin  (7:45-52).  The 
section  winds  up  ^  with  a  picture  of  the  divided  state  of  opin- 
ion (7:37-44). 

Are  we,   then,   to  suppose  that  Tatian   had   the  critical 

1  Adopting  Burton's  transposition. 


520  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

acumen  to  see  the  incongruity  of  3 :  1-2 1  in  its  present  setting, 
and  its  appropriateness  after  7:  30?  Hardly;  for  in  that  case 
he  would  not  have  introduced  the  section  one  verse  too  far 
along,  viz.,  after  verse  31,  so  that,  having  thus  broken  the 
unmistakable  connection  of  verse  31  with  32,  he  is  obliged 
to  repeat  verse  31  before  going  on  with  verses  32  ff.^ 

On  the  other  hand,  we  have  observed  in  other  connection^ 
that  the  Interview  with  Nicodemus  is  in  reality  the  Johannine 
counterpart  to  the  synoptic  story  of  the  Rich  Ruler  (Mk.  10: 
17-22  and  parallels),  in  its  inclosing  lessons  on  becoming  as 
"Httle  children"  (verses  13-16)  and  entering  into  the  king- 
dom of  God  along  Jesus'  way  of  martyrdom  and  by  his  "bap- 
tism" (verses  23-45).  May  it  be,  perhaps,  that  Tatian  in 
giving  Jn.  3:  1-2 1  the  position  of  this  synoptic  story  as  the 
central  incident  of  the  Pera?an  ministry  had  light  which  we 
do  not  have,  from  evangelic  sources  that  stood  between  the 
Johannine  and  the  synoptic  ? 

As  we  have  seen,  the  transpositions  of  Tatian  do  not 
wholly  restore  the  "apparent  displacements"  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel.  Both  in  ancient  and  modern  times  careful  readers 
have  found  these  structural  faultings,  and  in  various  ways 
have  attempted  to  restore  the  logical  order.  Tatian  himself, 
at  least  in  the  transposition  of  Jn.  12:42-50  from  after 
366-41  to  before  it,  would  seem  to  have  been  following 
the  same  conjectural  road  pursued  by  Syr.,^'°-  Ludolf  de 
Saxonica,  Luther  and  Beza,  Hitzig,  Norris,  BertHng,  Spitta, 
Wendt,  Burton  and  the  rest.  The  most  we  can  reasonably 
infer  from  this  largely  independent  consensus  is  that  the 
dislocations  are  not  merely  "apparent"  but  real.  Were  it 
otherwise   transposition   would   not   effect   improvement  of 

1  Cf.  the  repetition  of  5:  la,  and  the  division  of  4:  45.  Perhaps  Tatian 
was  influenced  by  the  resemblance  of  2:  23-25  (which  he  utilizes  elsewhere) 
to  this  verse. 

2  Above,  p.  382. 


DISLOCATIONS  OF  MATERIAL  521 

order  and  consistency,  but  confusion  worse  confounded  on 
both  sides.  Nor  can  wc  hope  to  reconstruct  a  (jrundschrift 
by  all  our  conjectural  restorations,  even  supported,  as  they 
have  sometimes  turned  out  to  be,  by  the  unexpected  testi- 
mony of  authorities  as  ancient  as  Tatian  or  Syr.'""-  We 
cannot  reasonably  expect  more  than  to  obtain  a  flceling 
glimpse  at  simpler  forms  and  conditions  of  the  Johannine 
material,  hints  of  a  time  wlien  men  knew  it  not  altogether 
and  exclusively  as  it  is  known  to  us.  Critical  restorations 
will  hardly  secure  unanimous  consent.  Nevertheless  the  at- 
tempt to  go  behind  the  canonical  is  not  fruitless.  Internal 
indications  have  already  sufficed  in  several  of  the  instances 
first  enumerated  to  explain  the  disorder.  They  may  conduct 
us  further  still.  In  particular  the  apparent  dislocations  of 
Jn.  8-10,  for  which  some  ten  years  ago  we  ourselves  sought  a 
remedy  in  the  transposition  first  of  10:  22-25  to  stand  at  the 
head  of  a  section  devoted  to  Jesus'  doings  and  sayings  at 
the  feast  of  Dedication,^  then  of  subordinate  parts  as  in- 
ternal evidence  seemed  to  indicate,  are  capable  of  a  much 
•  simpler  exj)lanation.  It  is  true  that  the  interruption  of 
10:  22  f.,  cutting  off  the  colloquy  of  10:  1-21  from  its  sequel 
in  24-42  is  intolerable.  Not  only  could  a  colloquy  not  be 
thus  resumed  in  fact  after  an  interval  of  three  months.  It  is 
not  even  probable  that  it  could  be  so  resumed  in  conception, 
"An  author  must  understand  himself.  He  cannot  all  at  once 
have  no  further  idea  of  the  import  of  his  own  expressions." 
The  date  10:  23  f.  is  therefore  in  all  probability  a  later  in- 
sertion.    In  its  present  context,  as  we  have  noted,-  it  falls 

1  Bacon,  Am.  Journ.  of  Theol.,  October,  1900,  pp.  790  ff.  The  Rev.  Mr. 
Strayer's  proposal  to  transpose  Jn.  10:  22  f.  to  the  same  position,  published 
on  the  same  date  in  Journ.  of  Theol.  Studies  (ii,  pp.  137  ff.),  is  not  a  genuine 
instance  of  coincidence  in  results  Ijy  independent  investigators,  Mr.  Straycr 
having  been  a  member  of  Professor  Bacon's  seminar  on  the  Johannine 
Literature  in  the  preceding  year. 

2  Altovc,  p.  4oy.     Wollhausen  extends  this  verdict  to  6:  4  also.     But  the 


522  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

outside  what  seems  to  be  the  festal  scheme  of  the  evangelist. 
Nor  is  it  required  to  explain  the  symbolism  of  the  discourses 
of  chapters  8-9,  beginning  "I  am  the  Light  of  the  world," 
and  the  sign  of  the  healing  of  the  man  born  blind.  Dedica- 
tion was  indeed  known  as  "the  Feast  of  Lights"  because  of 
the  illumination  which  then  as  now  formed  the  distinctive 
feature  of  its  celebration.  But  Tabernacles  also  had  its 
"lights"  of  the  golden  candelabra  in  the  court  of  the  women, 
where  Jesus  stands  in  8:  20,  "by  the  treasury."  The  trans- 
position accordingly  is  not  really  required.  Standing  in  its 
present  order  8 :  1 2  ff.  would  form  as  appropriate  a  sequel  to 
7:31-52  as  to  10:22-25.  We  simply  find  the  Johannine 
counterpart  of  the  synoptic  healings  of  the  blind  (Mk.  8: 
22-26;  10:46-52  and  parallels)  and  connected  discourse 
(Mt.  12:  22-45  =Lk.  II-  ^A-~3^',  12:  10)  forming  the  opening 
scene  (an  interjected  visit  to  Jerusalem  at  Tabernacles)  of 
the  Peraean  ministry. 

Professor  Burton's  transposition  of  7:45-52  before  37-44 
becomes  equally  needless  if  verses  37-39  be  recognized  as  an 
editorial  supplement.  And  such  was  Scholten's  verdict  on 
at  least  verse  39  nearly  half  a  century  ago.^  Wellhausen 
calls  for  the  excision  of  the  whole  paragraph  37-44  on  the 
ground  that  it  duplicates  25-30,  reaching  an  identical  con- 
clusion. Some  editorial  revision  or  supplementation  seems 
to  be  indicated,  though  we  have  only  internal  data  to  guide 
us  in  determining  its  nature. 

SHghtly  more  indication  of  the  derivation  of  the  disturbing 
element  is  found  in  12: 44-50,  whose  untenable  position 
Tatian  has  sought  to  improve.  Verse  36  already  reaches  a 
conclusion,  verses  37-41  give  the  narrator's  comment  upon 
the  close.     They  form  a  favorite  citation,  as  we  have  seen, 

case  is  different.     The  miracle  and  discourse  of  chapter  6  are  intimately  re- 
lated to  the  ritual  and  symbolism  of  Passover. 
1  Op.  cit.,  p.  64. 


DISLOCATIONS  OF  MATERIAL  523 

wherewith  to  cx])rc.ss  the  hopelessness  of  cfTorls  spent  upon 
the  stitT-neckcd  j)coj)le.  Verses  42  f.  come  thus  already 
pretty  late  for  admission  to  standing  with  the  authentic 
material.  They  show  a  redactional  character  in  the  attempt 
to  make  room  for  Nicodemus  and  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  re- 
peating 5:  44  in  an  undeservedly  harsh  apphcation;  they  are 
also  characterized  by  exj^rcssions  unexampled  in  the  Gospel 
(o/io)?,  rjirep),  or  found  only  in  late  passages  {ixevToi)}  After 
42  f.  the  attachment  of  44-50  is  im])ossible.  Either  it  must 
be  transposed  to  some  point  before  "Jesus  departed  and  hid 
himself  from  them,"  or  else  it  is  pure  editorial  supplement. 
The  loose  stringing  together  of  generahties  mostly  repeating 
utterances  given  elsewhere  points  to  the  latter  as  the  true 
derivation. - 

The  case  is  somewhat  different  with  the  greater  "apparent 
displacements,"  whose  relation  to  their  intrinsic  context  on 
the  one  side,  on  the  other  to  synoptic  story,  and  in  some  of 
the  most  important  cases  to  Tatian's  Diatessaron,  we  have 
now  examined.  Here  we  have  strong  internal  reason,  sup- 
ported in  most  cases  both  by  synoptic  aftmitics  and  by  the 
dehberate  transpositions  of  Tatian,  for  believing  that  the 
material  once  stood  in  the  revised  order,  though  not  neces- 
sarily in  what  we  should  recognize  as  a  form  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel.  It  is  not  only  a  confirmation  of  the  fact,  but  some- 
thing approaching  an  explanation  of  its  cause,  to  discover 
that  in  every  case  these  displacements  occur  in  conjunction 
with  passages  which  by  their  direct  connection  with  the 
Appendix  or  otherwise  give  independent  evidence  of  having 
been  introduced  by  R. 

Conspicuously  is  this  the  case  with  the  Interview  with 
Nicodemus,  which  Tatian's  order,  synoptic  affinity,  and  the 

1  Wellhausen,  Evang.  Joh.,  p.  58. 

2cy.  14:  7-9;  1:5,  18;  3:  17  f.;  5:  24,  45;  8:  12,  i9,.5i,  52;  9:  5;  10:30,38; 
12:35^- 


524  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

intrinsic  consistency  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  alike  require 
should  stand  after  7 :  30.  This  scene  is  Hnked  by  the  edi- 
torial comment  2:23-25  to  the  incident  of  the  Purging  of 
the  Temple,  2:  13-22,  a  passage  which  over  and  over  again 
we  have  found  evincing  its  alien  origin.  There  was  indeed 
nothing  in  the  content  of  3:  1-21  to  connect  it  with  Passover; 
but  it  dealt  with  the  doctrine  of  baptism,  and  this,  it  would 
seem,  was  enough  for  an  editor  in  search  of  material  for  the 
additional  Passover  he  had  interjected  into  the  section  on 
Jesus  and  the  Baptist.^ 

No  less  conspicuously  does  this  relation  appear  in  the  case 
of  the  noted  displacement  of  chapter  14.  This  chapter  now 
enters  immediately  after  the  synoptic  element  of  Peter's 
offer  to  follow  JesUs  to  martyrdom  (13:  36-38),  an  insertion 
inseparable,  as  we  have  seen,  from  the  Appendix. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  displacement  in  18:  12-27  which 
we  have  traced  with  convincing  evidence  to  its  origin  in  the 
process  of  editorial  supplementation  of  John  from  the  synop- 
tic story  of  Peter's  Denial. 

The  greatest  of  all  the  structural  disturbances  centers  in 
the  chapter  which  of  all  in  the  Gospel  stands  in  nearest  con- 
nection with  synoptic  story,  chapter  6,  with  its  cycle  of  in- 
cidents related  to  the  Agape.     According  to  Wellhausen: 

"The  verses  7:  3,  4  are  fundamental  for  literary  criticism  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel.  Jesus  is  called  upon  to  go  to  Judaea,  because 
Galilee  is  a  mere  corner;  in  Judaea  nothing  has  yet  been  seen  of  his 
miracles.  This  is  a  slap  in  the  face  to  what  we  read  in  chapters  i- 
6;  for  according  to  these  he  has  long  since  and  repeatedly  come 
publicly  forward  in  Judaea,  and  has  a  group  of  disciples  there." 

Wellhausen  regards  the  words  "thy  disciples"  (ol  f^adrjral 

1  We  must  also  attribute  to  R  the  supplement  to  the  Baptist's  discourse 
in  3:  31-36.  This  paragraph,  of  similar  composition  and  style  to  12:  44-50, 
reiterates  the  thoughts  and  expressions  of  Jesus'  discourse  to  Nicodemus, 
placing  them  now  in  the  mouth  of  the  Baptist! 


DISLOCATIONS  OF  MATERIAL  525 

a-ov)  in  7 : 3  as  mistakenly  supplying  the  subject  of  the  verb 
("falsches  cxplicitum").  "  That  they  may  sec  "  to  his  mind 
must  originally  have  referred  to  the  inhabitants  of  Juda3a 
generally.  In  agreement  with  Schwartz  he  regards  the  rest  of 
7:1-14  as  later,  confusing  the  original  sense.  Certainly 
verse  i  is  singularl}-  inapposite  after  chapter  6.  We  should 
expect  it  after  chapter  5.  Moreover,  even  in  ancient  times  the 
incongruity  of  the  statement  "I  go  not  up"  in  verse  8  with 
verses  10  ff.  was  so  keenly  felt  as  to  lead  to  the  corrected  read- 
ing "I  go  not  yd  up."  We  may  not  altogether  indorse  the 
drastic  analysis  of  Schwartz  and  Wellhausen,  but  it  is  difficult 
to  avoid  the  conclusion  that  some  sort  of  editorial  readjust- 
ment has  been  attempted  in  7 :  1-14. 

The  case  seems  nearly  analogous  to  10:  22  f.,  which  cuts  off 
the  sequel  to  the  colloquy' of  10:  1-2 1,  or  to  18:  15-18,  which 
cuts  off  the  sequel  to  12-14,  or  to  13:  36-38  which  (with  the 
disj)laced  chapter  14)  cuts  off  the  sequel  to  13:  12-35;  except 
that  in  chapter  6  we  have  a  large  clement  of  synoptic  material 
not  directly  borrowed,  whereas  in  13:36-38  and  18:  15-18 
and  25-27  we  have  small  extracts  repeating  almost  verbally 
the  synoptic  story.  Tatian's  order  implies  that  the  Samaritan 
ministry  (chapter  4)  and  the  Outbreak  of  Oj)position  (chap- 
ter 5)  once  occupied  the  same  relative  position  toward  the 
Departure  from  Galilee  (7:21!.)  as  their  synoptic  counter- 
parts, the  Journey  to  Phenicia  (Mk.  7 :  24  ff .)  and  the  ac- 
count of  How  they  were  Stumbled  in  Jesus  (Mk.  2:  1-3:  6) 
may  be  supposed  to  have  occupied  to  the  corresponding 
chronological  milestone  (Mk.  10:  i  ff.).  This  seems  also  to 
be  impKed  by  the  chronological  relation  of  Pentecost  (the 
feast  of  5:  I  ff.)  to  Passover  (6:4)  and  Tabernacles  (7:  2), 
and  by  the  connection  in  Mk.  2:1-3:35  of  the  synoptic 
equivalents  of  chapter  5  and  7 :  3  ff.  respectively.  But  if  this 
order  once  obtained  how  came  it  to  be  broken  by  the  remo\al 
to  this  point  of  chapter  6  ? 


526  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

We  may  possibly  find  some  approach  to  an  answer  to  this 
question  when  we  observe  that  chapter  6  combines  in  itself 
the  equivalents  of  two  leading  synoptic  themes,  one  of  which 
precedes  Jesus'  departure  into  "the  borders  of  Tyre  and 
Sidon,"  the  other  his  final  departure  from  Galilee.  These  are 
(i)  the  Feeding  of  the  Five  Thousand,  Walking  on  the  Sea, 
and  Collision  with  the  Scribes  in  Capernaum  (Mk.  6 :  30- 
7 :  23  and  parallels  =  Jn.  6:  1-59);  (2)  the  Confession  of  Peter 
and  its  sequelae  (Mk.  8:27-9:50  and  parallels  =  Jn.  6:60- 
71).  If,  then,  Jn.  6,  which  could  not  well  be  divided,  was 
located  before  the  Samaritan  ministry  (Jn.  4:4-45),  as  it 
should  be  to  correspond  with  the  position  of  (i)  before 
Mk.  7 :  24  ff.,  (2)  would  be  drawn  away  from  its  very  manifest 
connection  with  the  final  Departure  from  Galilee,  Mk.  10:  i  ff. 
It  was  simpler  to  put  the  whole  before  7 :  2  ff . ;  ^  but  evidences 
of  redactional  readjustment  in  such  a  context,  especially  at 
the  points  of  juncture,  should  not  excite  our  wonderment. 

The  structural  history  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  a  problem 
too  intricate  for  a  general  treatise,  too  uncertain  and  debat- 
able as  regards  details  to  warrant  unsupported  statements  of 
opinion.  One  result,  however,  the  partitionists  and  revision- 
ists may  congratulate  themselves  upon  as  already  established. 
The  once  almost  uncontradicted  doctrine  of  the  structural 
unity  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  no  longer  stands  unchallenged. 
On  the  contrary,  the  superficial  impression  of  a  work  "aus 
einem  Guss"  produced  by  the  uniform,  easily  imitated, 
oracular  style  is  seen  to  be  delusive.  Closer  inspection  both 
of  textual  history  and  inner  consistency  confirms  the  proba- 
bility raised  by  the  admitted  later  attachment  of  an  "after- 
thought." Gaps  and  seams  abound  everywhere.  Par- 
ticularly unmistakable  are  additions  intimately  related  to  the 
Appendix,  and  aiming  like  it  to  adjust  the  "spiritual  gospel" 
to  the  more  widely  prevalent  synoptic  type.     Whether  the 

1  7 :  I  is  clearly  out  of  place. 


DISLOCATIONS  OF  MATERIAL  527 

special  phenomena  of  "apparent  displacements,"  attested 
not  merely  by  internal  inconsistencies  but  by  the  relation  of 
the  material  to  synoptic  eciuivalents  and  by  efforts  at  adjust- 
ment dating  from  the  very  first  appearance  of  the  Gospel, 
can,  or  cannot,  be  brought  into  connection  with  that  process 
of  accommodation  which  the  external  evidence  has  led  us  to 
date  at  Rome  ca.  130-150  a.  d.,  the  main  principle  is  already 
far  on  the  way  toward  acceptance,  that  the  latest  of  the  Gos- 
pels has  not  escaped  the  vicissitudes  common  to  its  kind  and 
most  to  be  expected  in  those  of  latest  date.  It  has  a  history  of 
growth  and  development,  of  revision,  recasting,  cancelation 
and  supplementation.  Proofs  of  this  process  rightly  viewed 
can  make  this  Gospel  of  all  the  greater  value  to  the  true 
student  of  Christian  origins,  because  like  the  varied  "scrip- 
tures of  the  prophets"  given  "by  divers  portions  and  in 
divers  manners"  it  will  be  seen  to  ej^itomize,  as  no  mere  indi- 
vidual's work  could  do,  the  inner  life  of  one  of  the  greatest 
branches  of  the  Church. 


CHAPTER  XX 


CONCLUSION 


Closer  scrutiny  of  the  evidences,  external  and  internal,  di- 
rect and  indirect,  bearing  on  'the  origin  and  history  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  has  brought  us  to  a  conclusion  adverse  to  the 
tradition.  From  the  latter  half  of  the  second  century  to  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  that  tradition  remained  domi- 
nant. At  its  beginnings  it  met  opposition  and  overcame  it, 
not  so  much  on  critical  and  historical  grounds  as  because  of 
doctrinal  interest  and  practical  expediency.  For  about  one 
hundred  years  ^  modern  criticism  has  brought  all  its  resources 
to  bear  upon  the  question,  fully  realizing  that  our  whole  con- 
ception of  the  origins  of  Christianity  hinges  upon  it.  The 
testimony  of  antic|uity  has  been  reinvestigated.  It  is  found 
to  fall  into  two  easily  separable  classes:  (i)  References  recog- 
nizable as  envisaging  our  Fourth  Gospel  inclusive  of  the 
Appendix,  in  some  cases  explicitly  attributing  it  to  "John"; 
(2)  echoes  and  influences  more  or  less  resembling  passages 
embodied  in  our  Fourth  Gospel.  Of  the  former  class  (i) 
there  are  none  earher  than  ca.  170  a.  d.,  the  period  marked  by 
rapid  dissemination  on  the  one  side,  vigorous  opposition  on 
the  other  to  the  Gospel's  claims  to  apostohc  authorship.  Of 
the  latter  class  (2)  there  are  none  to  indicate  acquaintance 
with  the  X  literature  outside  proconsular  Asia  until  slight 
traces  are  found  at  Rome  ca.  150  a.  d.  None  suggest  the  idea 
that  the  literature  was  regarded  as  apostolic  in  origin  by  those 
who  show  acquaintance  with  it.     There  is  not,  even  in  the 

1  Bretschneider's  Probahilia,  the  first  serious  critical  argument  against  the 
traditional  authorship,  appeared  in  1820. 

528 


CONCLUSION  529 

quarters  where  we  have  a  right  to  cxi)cct  it,  ap[)eal  to  the  au- 
thority of  John,  or  reference  to  his  residence  in  Asia.    Paul 
alone  is  the  apostolic  authority  in  matters  of  doctrine,  though 
with  an  increasing  tendency  to  appeal  to  the  evangelic  tra- 
dition of  the  Sayings  of  the  Lord  handed  down  by  "the 
apostles  and  elders."     The  scat  of  this  historic  tradition, 
however,  is  not  Ephesus,  but  Jerusalem.     The  conception 
of  John  as  a  resident  of  Asia,  and  a  writer  to  "the  churches" 
there,  appears  first  in  the  editorial  envelope  of  the  Palestin- 
ian apocalypse,  which  owes  to  this  envelope  its  designation 
the  Revelation  of  John.    This  book  attains  to  authoritative 
standing  both  in  Asia  and  at  Rome  long  before  the  Gospel  and 
Epistles  current  in  the  same  region.    Thus  classified  into  evi- 
dences bearing  upon  the  period  before  and  after  Tatian  the  ex- 
ternal testimony  ceases  to  wear  the  aspect  it  had  long  assumed 
in  the  eyes  of  defenders.    It  indicates  rather  a  process  of 
growth  in  Asia  from  midrashic  expositions  of  evangelic  tradi- 
tion expounded  in  the  Pauline  sense.    These  were  embodied 
in  a  form  adapted  for  local  circulation  and  were  perhaps  com- 
mended to  the  churches  by  the  addition  of  the  three  Epistles. 
The  turning  point  in  the  history  of  the  Gospel  will  have  come 
with  the  addition  of  the  Appendix.    But  the  influence  of  the 
Appendix  is  not  reflected  until  a  full  half-century  after  we  find 
distinct  traces  of  the  First  Epistle  in  Asia.    The  process  of  dis- 
semination of  the  Gospel  as  an  apostolic  writing  seems  to 
begin  from  Rome  at  about  the  period  of  Tatian  (175  a.  d.). 
This  involves  the  spread  of  traditions  concerning  John  in 
Asia.    These,  however,  make  the  stay  in  Patmos  their  start- 
ing point,  a  highly  unreliable  foundation  in  view  of  the 
known  methods  of  the  apocalyptic  writers.     The  testimony 
of  Asia  in  1 10-150  A.  D.,  albeit  necessarily  a  witness  of  si- 
lence, must  here  again  be  distinguished  from  the  witness  of 
Gaul  in  186  a.  d. 

Under  the  head   of   Direct   Internal    Evidence  we  have 
Fourth  Gospel — 34 


530  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

classified  those  elements  of  all  the  writings  attributed  to 
John  on  which  the  early  testimonies  to  Johannine  author- 
ship are  based.  Such  passages  are  sometimes  explicitly 
quoted,  sometimes  merely  reflected  in  their  phraseology. 
Among  passages  which  make  a  direct  claim  Rev.  i :  1-4; 
22:  8  are  preeminent.  But  the  inner  contents  of  the  Apoca- 
lypse are  seen  to  give  no  warrant  for  these  editorial  imputa- 
tions of  the  visions  to  "  John."  At  all  events  the  visions  have 
no  relation  to  Patmos  or  to  the  churches  of  Asia,  as  the 
prologue  and  epilogue  aim  to  make  it  appear.  The  Epistles 
again  are  quite  improperly  represented  as  embodying  a 
profession  on  the  part  of  their  author  to  be 

"himself  not  only  an  eye-witness,  but  a  hearer,  yea,  and  a  writer 
as  well,  of  all  the  wonders  done  by  the  Lord  in  their  order."  ^ 

The  exegesis  which  thus  interprets  I  Jn.  i :  1-3  is  forced,  and 
perverts  the  real  meaning  in  the  interest  of  a  theory  of  au- 
thorship. This  theory  itself,  plainly  declared  in  the  Ap- 
pendix to  the  Gospel  and  the  connected  passage  Jn.  19:  35, 
rests  on  equally  violent  exegesis,  while  the  additions  them- 
selves are  in  the  one  case  an  admitted  "afterthought,"  in 
the  other  textually  doubtful,  in  fact  rejected  as  spurious  by 
one  of  the  best  textual  critics  among  the  "defenders."  Other 
passages  adduced  from  the  Gospel  as  "making  a  direct 
claim"  are  found  upon  examination  to  stand  in  the  same 
category  as  those  from  the  Epistle.  In  particular  the  figure 
of  the  Beloved  Disciple  will  not  bear  the  concrete  sense  put 
upon  it  by  the  author  of  the  Appendix.  This  interpretation 
shows  on  the  contrary  every  mark  of  originating  and  attain- 
ing to  supremacy  in  the  course  of  the  Montanistic  and 
Paschal  controversies  in  Asia  and  at  Rome. 

The  direct  claims  called  "internal"  by  virtue  of  the  fact 
that  ancient  editors  combined  their  supplements  with  the 

1  Muratorianum. 


CONCLUSION  531 

text,  lead  us  back  thus,  by  their  clear  dependence  upon  the 
documents  edited,  to  an  examination  for  ourselves  of  the 
indications  of  authorship;  and  these,  aside  from  editorial 
supplements  and  "parenthetic  additions,"  are  exclusively 
indirect.  Once  the  compositions  themselves,  i.  e.,  the  three 
Epistles  and  the  main  body  of  the  Gospel,  are  examined  as 
purely  anonymous  products,  corresponding  in  this  respect 
to  most  writings  of  their  kind,  their  date  and  general  char- 
acter become  apparent  from  their  purpose  and  structure. 
Their  aim  is  an  interpretation  of  the  common  evangelic 
tradition  in  the  "spiritual"  sense,  i.  e.,  in  the  light  of  the 
Pauline  doctrine  of  incarnation  and  eternal  life  by  mystical 
union  of  believers  through  impartation  of  the  Spirit  of 
Christ  with  God  the  Father.  The  material  emj)loyed  is 
mainly  synoptic.  This  material  is  sometimes  wrongly  com- 
bined and  usually  exaggerated.  It  is  systematically  sub- 
ordinated to  the  doctrinal  purpose  of  presenting  the  career 
of  Jesus  as  a  redemptive  incarnation  of  the  di\ine  Logos. 
Its  "pragmatism"  is  midrashic,  though  evidences  of  ac- 
quaintance with  western  Palestine,  and  with  Jewish  ideas 
and  literature  frequently  appear.  Superiority  from  the 
historian's  standpoint  to  the  synoptic  tradition  appears 
mainly  in  the  author's  resistance,  in  common  with  "all  the 
churches  of  Asia"  in  the  second  century,  to  the  occidental 
disposition  to  abohsh  "the  feasts  of  the  Jews"  in  particular 
the  commemoration  of  the  sjjiritual  Redemption  on  the  an- 
niversary (by  Jewish  lunar  reckoning)  of  the  crucifixion  and 
resurrection.  At  Rome  the  celebration  of  the  Lord's  day 
next  succeeding  the  Friday  of  Passover,  as  an  anniversary 
of  the  issuance  of  Jesus'  resurrected  body  from  the  sepulcher, 
was  rapidly  superseding  the  more  spiritual,  Pauline  ritual 
of  a  Christian  Passover  and  Firstfruits,  or  Passover  alone, 
marking  the  redemption  of  the  Israel  of  God  from  the  bond- 
age of  sin  and  death,  but  quite  without  reference  to  the  later 


532  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

story  of  the  Women  at  the  Sepulcher.  Our  author  is  loyal 
to  the  Asiatic  practice,  though  anxious  to  combine  both 
elements  of  the  tradition,  the  physical  and  the  spiritual. 

Back  of  the  indirect  evidences  pointing  to  authorship  at 
Ephesus  by  some  such  PauHnist  of  Jewish  origin  and  philo- 
sophic training  as  we  might  imagine  Apollos  to  have  been, 
lie  certain  others  affecting  the  structure  of  the  Gospel.  The 
period  of  its  principal  circulation  in  Asia  would  seem  to  have 
been  one  when  the  danger  to  the  Church  was  more  from 
heretical  perversion  of  its  doctrine  than  from  persecution  by 
the  state,  i.  e.,  the  period  of  Hadrian  or  slightly  earher. 
Back  of  this  lies  an  obscurer  period.  A  long  series  of  dis- 
connected observations  indicates  that  the  material  of  our 
Fourth  Gospel,  so  far  from  being  from  one  casting,  has  been 
altered,  cut  and  supplemented,  revised  and  remolded,  per- 
haps repeatedly.  Matters  here  are  still  sub  judice,  but  al- 
leged uniformity  of  style  is  no  longer  accepted  as  an  answer 
to  the  phenomena  exhibited  both  by  textual  and  higher 
critics.  With  the  evidences  of  unseen  forces  working  out  the 
"spiritual"  Gospel  as  we  know  it,  not  all  at  once,  but  by 
divers  portions  and  in  divers  manners,  after  Paul's  death, 
in  the  great  headquarters  of  his  missionary  activity,  we  stand 
in  the  midst  of  the  critic's  problem  of  to-day.  As  one  of  the 
noblest  leaders  of  religious  thought  in  our  times  has  written : 

"  There  is  the  religious  belief  that  things  eternal  are  seen  through 
things  temporal,  that  space  and  time  in  all  their  rich  variety,  color, 
and  movements  are  servants  of  the  Highest.  This  belief  leads  to 
the  expectation  that  a  correct  version  of  the  temporal,  in  respect 
to  any  religion,  would  prepare  the  way  for  a  new  and  more  in- 
fluential conception  of  the  Eternal.  Here  is  a  new  fountain  of 
enthusiasm  for  the  devout  scholar.  In  his  textual  criticism,  his 
analysis  and  rearrangement  of  documents,  his  assignment  of  books 
to  their  proper  place  in  the  process  of  human  development,  he  is 
preparing  the  way  for  a  closer  vision  of  the  coming  of  the  kingdom 


CONCLUSION  533 

of  God.  It  is  the  hope  of  serving  this  ultimate  end  that  turns  the 
detail  and  drudgery  of  his  work  into  poetry;  that  end  shines 
through  the  entire  world  in  which  he  works — a  world  of  confusion, 
sorrow,  and  contradiction — and  that,  like  the  sun,  fills  it  with 
splendor  and  life."  ^ 

We  have  not  minimized  the  revolutionary  effect  to  be 
anticipated  from  the  acceptance  of  the  critical  as  against 
the  traditional  view  of  the  origin  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  We 
are  even  conscious  that  to  a  certain  order  of  minds  it  may 
be  more  welcome  in  its  destructive  than  in  its  constructive 
results.  It  will  be  heralded  as  a  triumph  of  the  "opponents 
of  revealed  religion"  instead  of  a  triumph  of  its  friends  over 
the  dead  hand  of  ecclesiastical  tradition.  And  yet  how  evan- 
escent, how  relatively  trifling  are  its  destructive  as  compared 
with  its  constructive  effects. 

To  the  assailants  of  this  long  dominant  tradition,  made 
sacrosanct  by  the  dependence  on  it  of  such  masses  of  theol- 
ogy, the  Fourth  Gospel  marks  not  the  beginning,  but  the 
end  of  the  evangeHc  revelation.  Its  interpretation  of  the 
person  and  career  of  Jesus  sub  specie  aeternitatis  is  the  ma- 
turest  expression  of  the  great  effort  of  Paul  to  know  him 
"not  after  the  flesh,  but  after  the  spirit."  Hegel  has  taught 
us  that  it  is  far  from  being  all  of  Christianity,  or  even 
its  greatest  factor,  to  lay  hold  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  as 
the  condition  of  human  welfare.  We  must  also — yes,  su- 
premely— contemplate  him  in  his  personality,  a  phenom- 
enon of  the  life  of  God  in  man,  of  the  life  of  man  in  God, 
having  permanent  significance  for  the  race.  For  the  re- 
ligious thinker  it  is  impossible  not  to  contemplate  Jesus  ob- 
jectively, in  his  earthly  story,  in  the  subsequent  effect  u])on 
humanity  of  his  life,  past  or  present,  as  "a  representation 
of  the  di\inc  idea."  ' 

1  G.  A.  Gordon,  Religion  and  Miracle,  1909,  p.  174. 

2  Hegel,  Philosophy  0/  Religion,  vol.  iii,  p.  85  (Engl,  trans!.). 


534  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

In  all  the  field  of  history  there  is  no  problem  for  the  re- 
ligious thinker  comparable  in  importance  to  this.  The  great- 
ness of  Paul  above  all  the  other  apostles  Hes  in  the  fact  that 
he  saw  this  truth,  and  applied  himself  to  the  task  of  inter- 
preting Jesus  to  the  world  as  "a  representation  of  the  divine 
idea." 

In  the  nature  of  the  case  the  interpretation  of  one  age  will 
inevitably  require  adaptation  to  the  new  conceptions,  new 
modes  of  thought  of  another.  First  attempts,  however  great, 
must  very  soon  require  restatement.  In  the  chapter  on 
The  Evangelist's  Task  we  have  tried  to  show  the  supreme 
and  crying  need  of  the  Pauline  evangel,  as  it  would  appear 
to  the  Greek  churches  a  generation  after  their  great  apostle 
had  won  his  "crown  of  righteousness."  Paul  had  inter- 
preted the  Christ  of  his  own  experience,  the  crucified  Gali- 
lean "manifested  as  the  Son  of  God  with  power  by  the 
resurrection";  but  he  had  not  apphed  his  doctrine  of  God 
in  man  "metamorphosing"  into  the  image  of  his  glory,  trans- 
forming by  the  renewing  of  our  mind  into  the  likeness  of  the 
Creator,  to  the  earthly  career  of  Jesus.  Mark's  Gospel  is 
the  first  attempt  we  know  to  depict  the  Hfe  of  Jesus  in  the 
light  of  Paul's  doctrine  of  the  Spirit  of  Adoption,  imparting 
all  "gifts  of  the  Spirit"  here  on  earth  and  effecting  even  the 
"redemption  of  our  body"  by  a  "quickening  through  his 
Spirit  that  dwelleth  in  you."  It  was  not  adequate.  Mark's 
representation  fell  far  short  of  doing  justice  to  the  Pauline 
idea.  We  know  not  the  hand  which  attempted  the  greater 
task.  In  Antioch  and  in  Palestine  others  had  attempted 
something  of  the  sort.  It  was  reserved  to  Ephesus  to  pro- 
duce a  truly  "spiritual"  gospel,  interpreting  the  synoptic  tra- 
dition of  Jesus'  life  and  teaching  from  the  standpoint  of 
Paul's  doctrine  of  the  redeeming  Spirit. 

To  do  this  the  Ephesian  evangelist  had  no  other  recourse 
than  the  philosophic  conceptions  of  his  time.    We  study  the 


CONCLUSION  535 

history  of  Ionic  philosophy,  wc  trace  the  development  of  the 
Logos  idea  in  Stoic  and  Jewish  a])i)lication,  in  Alexandria 
and  in  Ephesus,  in  order  to  appreciate  in  what  sense  the 
fourth  evangelist  employs  it  to  body  forth  his  Pauline  thought. 
But  we  do  scant  justice  to  his  example,  still  less  to  the  ex- 
ample and  precept  of  the  great  apostle  whose  thought  he 
loyally  seeks  to  carry  on,  if  we  make  his  intcrjjretation  final. 
Who  is  Paul,  and  who  is  Apollos,  ])ut  ministers  through 
whom  we  believe?  True  loyally  to  them  is  shown  not  in 
adopting  ready  made  the  system  of  thought  with  all  its  local 
and  temporal  limitations  by  which  they  endeavored  to  set 
forth  their  conception  of  the  life  of  man  in  God,  the  life  of 
God  in  man.  The  revelation  lies  in  the  fact,  not  in  the 
particular  interpretation  by  which  men  seek  to  fit  it  into  their 
systems  of  thought.  There  may  be  harm  and  loss  to  the 
cause  of  revealed  religion  to-day;  but  far  more  by  those  who 
seek  to  identify  the  revelation  with  the  mere  interpretation, 
whether  that  of  Paul,  or  that  of  John,  or  of  any  other,  how- 
ever great,  than  by  those  who  with  humble  and  reverent, 
though  unfettered  hand  seek  to  understand  these  ancient  in- 
terpretations under  the  real  conditions  of  their  time,  in  order 
the  better  to  reach  an  interpretation  for  our  own. 

True  loyalty  to  Paul  and  the  fourth  evangelist  demands 
that  we  apply  the  categories  of  a  modern  philosophy  and 
psychology  to  the  life  of  the  great  Elder  Brother — yes  and 
to  that  of  his  lowliest  follower — as  well  and  as  fearlessly  as 
Paul  and  the  fourth  evangelist  ai)i)lied  the  Logos  doctrine 
of  Ephesus  and  Alexandria. 

Acceptance  of  the  critical  view  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  in- 
volves a  great  challenge  and  a  great  responsibility.  There 
will  be  no  longer  the  apostolic  authority  of  an  eye-witness,  a 
confidant  of  Jesus'  inmost  consciousness.  Still  less  will  it 
be  possible  to  present  the  Christology  of  the  fourth  evan- 
gelist as  the  personal  testimony  of  Jesus  to  himself.    Ma\ing 


536  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

treated  the  Pauline  incarnation  doctrine  as  representing 
only  Paul's  attempt  to  interpret  the  eternal  significance  of 
this  supreme  example  of  the  Kfe  of  man  in  God,  the  Ufe  of 
God  in  man — having  treated  the  fourth  evangelist's  also  as 
only  a  further  development  by  unknown  hands  a  full  gen- 
eration later  of  Paul's  deepest  thought,  we  are  brought  face 
to  face  with  the  problem  in  our  own  independent  thinking: 
What  significance  for  the  human  race  has  the  person  and 
career  of  Jesus  ?  What  rational  account  shall  our  philosophy 
make  to  itself  of  the  hfe  which  first  made  the  fihal  relation 
to  God  actual  in  itself,  and  is  to-day  making  of  it  a  reality 
for  multitudes  of  "brethren"?  What  the  Church  of  the 
second  century  did  for  its  generation  should  be  done  again 
for  ours.  The  story  of  God  in  Christ,  "changing  the  rela- 
tion of  the  world  to  himself"  should  be  so  told  by  modem 
historical  research,  so  interpreted  by  modern  philosophic 
thought,  that  men  "may  beheve  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ  the 
Son  of  God,  and  in  believing  may  have  life  through  his 
name." 


INDEX 


Aall,  437- 

Abbott,  E.  A.,  on  date  of  John,  22; 

on  Elders,  117. 
Abbott,  Ezra,  18. 
Acts,  on  heresy  in  Ephcsus,  163;  its 

references  to  John,  164. 
Acts  of  John,  82,  91,  261,  280,  424. 
Acts  of  Pilate,  41,  391,  400. 
iEnon,  387. 
Aerius,  414. 
Agape  Narrative,  343. 
Alexander  of  Jerusalem,  398. 
Alogi,  go,  227,  266. 
Anachronisms,  324. 
Analytical  School,  472,  495. 
Annianus,  397. 
Anointing  of  Jesus,  335,  421,  427, 

432- 

Anti-Docetism  in  I  John,  322. 

Apocalypse,  529,  530;  prologue  and 
epilogue,  160,  176;  use  by  Papias, 
104;  on  witnesses  of  Messiah,  135; 
on  spirit  of  prophecy,  152;  claims 
of  authorship,  157;  date  of,  173; 
author  of,  175;  a  composite  work, 
179;  Palestinian  origin,  180;  first 
current  in  Asia,  268. 

Apocalypse  of  Thomas,  397. 

ApoUinaris  of  Hicrapolis,  228,  258, 
262,  422. 

Apollonius,  401. 

ApoUos  in  Ephesus,  282. 

Apostles'  Creed,  430. 

Apostles  and  Elders,  470. 

Apostolic  Fathers,  use  of  John,  57,94. 

Apostolic  Tradition,  172. 


Appendix  of  John,  86,  129,  445,  446, 
450,  482,  529;  source  of  tradition, 
86;  object,  99;  on  authorship,  161; 
on  martyrdom  of  apostles,  133; 
relation  to  parenthetic  additions, 
205;  date  of,  210,  219,  224;  pur- 
pose of,  221;  on  sons  of  Zebedee, 

307- 

Appendix  of  Mark,  19S,  219;  rela- 
tion to  John,  200;  reference  to 
Jn.  20:  II,  213. 

Aristion,  70,  112. 

Argument  from  Silence,  73. 

Argumentum  (Latin),  75. 

Ascension  in  Luke  and  John,  424. 

Asterius  Urbanus,  243. 

Augustine,  396. 

Balaam  (mask  for  Jesus),  406. 

Baldensperger,  290,  437. 

Baptism,  290. 

Barnabas,  Epistle  of,  356,  424. 

Bar-Cocheba,  219,  264. 

Basilides,  52,  408;  opposed  in  Jn.  9, 
294. 

Baur,  19,  479. 

Beginning  of  Miracles,  376. 

Beloved  Disciple,  301,  530;  at  the 
Supper,  310;  at  the  Cross,  317; 
at  the  Tomb,  318,  319;  as  in- 
terpreter of  Petrine  tradition,  321; 
a  composite,  325;  and  Paul,  326; 
intended  for  John,  330. 

Bcrtiing,  499. 

Bethany  (by  Jerusalem),  335;  be- 
yond Jordan,  335,  387. 


537 


538 


INDEX 


Bethesda,  386. 

Bethsaida,  388. 

Betrayal  of  Jesus,  314. 

Bigg,  417- 

Blass,  472;  on  Paplas'  use  of  Reve- 
lation, 105;  on  Jn.  19:  35,  461;  on 
text  of  John,  473,  494;  on  Jn.  18: 

X3  U  483. 
Blastus,  247. 
Blau,  358. 
Blind  healed,  382. 
Boanerges,  140. 
Bousset,  449,  481. 
Box,  G.  H.,  428,  433. 
Breaking  of  bread,  380,  432,  433. 
Bretschneider,  528. 
Briggs,  452. 
Burton,  E.  D.,  498,  516,  522. 

Caius  (see  Gaius). 

Call  of  Disciples,  374,  375. 

Cana,  miracle,  377,  493. 

Canon  of  Asia,  29. 

Cappadocian  Calendar,  399,  413. 

Celsus,  483. 

Centurion's  Servant,  373. 

Cerinthus,  8,  232,  262,  465. 

Chapman,  Dom,  398. 

Christology,  9;  of  John's  Gospel, 
12. 

Chronology,  389,  490. 

Chwolson,  358. 

Clement  of  Alexandria,  on  Basilides, 
53;  on  authority,  87;  against 
Melito,  257;  Hypotyposes,  276. 

Clement  of  Rome,  Epistle  of,  on 
Apostles,  166;  a  disciple  of  Apos- 
tles, 253. 

Composite  characters  in  John,  280, 
322,  336,  368. 

Constantine,  429. 

Conybeare,  114. 

Corssen,  400,  402,  405;  on  Papias, 
112. 


Defense,  443  ff. 

Delff,  450,  480,  488;  on  Jn.  2:  i-ii, 
510. 

Destructive  Criticism,  443. 

Diaiessaron  (see  Tatian). 

Didaskalia,  249. 

Dionysius  of  Alexandria,  103,  231; 
on  John  in  Asia,  106. 

Dionysius  Bar-Salibi,   231. 

Disciple  ("another"),  307. 

Disciple  whom,  etc.  (see  Beloved 
Disciple). 

Displacement,  488,  495,  520;  of 
ch.  5,  499,  516;  of  ch.  6,  526;  of 
7:  15-24,  499;  of  chh.  8-10,  521; 
of  10:  26  ff.,  499;  of  12:  44-50, 
500,  513;  of  ch.  14,  500,  524;  of 
18:  14-18,  500;  of  18:  12-27,  524- 

Division  of  Ministry,  371. 

Dobschiitz,  399. 

Docetists,  458,  465. 

Drummond,  J.,  on  external  evi- 
dence, 17;  on  modern  question, 
35;  his  use  of  term  "quotation," 
39;  on  Basilides,  55;  on  Jn.  21: 
23,  211;  on  Apollinaris,  258,  423; 
his  demands  met,  269;  on  internal 
evidence,  273;  on  pragmatism, 
337;  on  Quartodeciman  harmon- 
ization, 415;  on  Paschal  contro- 
versy, 416;  on  raising  of  Lazarus, 
446;  on  Appendix,  473;  on  dis- 
placements, 475. 

Echoes  and  Influences,  30,  43. 
Elders  (of  Jerusalem),  loi;  their  use 

of  Matthew  and  Mark,  97. 
Eleutherus,  245. 
Elias  as  "Forerunner,"  138. 
Ephesus,    530;    seat    of    Paulinism, 

292;  school  of,  471. 
Epiphanius,    on     James,     148;    on 

death  of  John  the  Elder,  150;  on 

Alogi,   227-233;  on  Cappadocian 


INDEX 


539 


Quartodccinianisiii,  301,  413;  on 
Cappadocian  calendar,  400. 

Epistles  to  churches  of  Asia,  173. 

Epistles  of  John,  184;  on  Antichrist, 
206. 

Equinox  celebrated,  425. 

Eucharist  transposed,  434. 

Eusebius,  his  purposes  in  writing, 
83;  his  chronology,  108;  Syriac 
version,  loc);  on  John  the  Elder, 
117;  on  Gospel  order,  226;  on 
Caius,  227;  on  order  of  John,  234; 
on  Montanism,  241. 

Evangelist's  personality,  464. 

Evang.  Hehracorum,  223,  474,  512, 

515- 
Evang.  Petri,    50   f.,  98,   196,   215, 

424  f.,  430;  and  John,  40. 
Exorcism,  354,  376. 
External  Evidence,  17  ff. 
Ezckicl  in  Jn.  10,  293. 

Farewell  Discourse,  369. 

Fast  preceding  Easier,  419. 

Feasts  of  Jews,  409,  435;  Passover, 

409;  Pentecost,  409;  Tabernacles, 

409;  Dedication,  492. 
Firstfruits,  421,  423,  429. 
Fiorinus,  251. 
Fotheringham,  390. 
Fourfold  Gospel,  96. 
Fourth    Gospel    (see    John,    Gosi)cl 

of). 
Frick,  397. 
Furrer,  216. 

Gabbatha,  386. 

Gaius,  100,414;  Heads  against,  230  f. 
Dialogue  with  Proclus,  102,  230, 
236;  Disputation  (see  Dialogue); 
of  Asia,  186. 

Gelasius,  Decree  of,  261. 

Gemini  (Year  of),  390,  392. 

Gethsemane  in  John,  312. 


Gordon,  G.  A.,  532. 

Ciutjahr,   267;  on  Syriac  Eusebius, 

107;  on  Irena;an  tradition,  119. 
<^rill,  J.,  437. 

Ilanina  of  Sepphoris,  406. 

Harnack,  29,  399,  437;  on  Alogi, 
240;  on  dale  of  Apocalypse,  174. 

Harris,  J.  R.,  232. 

Hegel,  533. 

Hegesippus,  47,  452;  on  martyrdom 
of  James,  145;  Memoirs  on  Jer- 
usalem succession,  145. 

rieitmiiller,  ;^t,^. 

Hemerobajjtisls,  290. 

Hcrford,  406. 

Hernias,  Shepherd  of,  238. 

Hill,  J.  H.,  515;  on  Tatian's  order, 

503- 
Hilgcnfeld,  491. 
Hippolytus,  100,  230,  391,  398,  401; 

his  Defense  of  the  Gospel,  235;  a 

disciple  of  apostles,  253. 
Historicity,  438. 
Hitzig,  491,  498,  515. 
Holtzman,  H.  J.,  333,  476. 
Holtzman,  O.,  ;^t,^. 
"Hour"  of  Jesus,  346. 

Ignatius,  469;  neglect  of  John,  31, 
168. 

Intercession  of  Christ,  298  f. 

Interpolations  in  John,  of  i:  15,  477; 
of  2:  1-12,  493,  512;  of  2:  14-22, 
489;  of  10:  22  f.,  492;  of  13:36- 
38,  483,  487;  of  18:  15-18,  25-27 
483;  of  19:  35,  482;  of  20:  24-29, 

494- 
Irena;us,  on  Papias,  76;  on  apostles 
in  Asia,  loi,  106;  on  Elders  of 
Papias,  121;  on  Alogi,  240;  on 
Montanists,  241;  sent  to  Rome, 
245;  against  Blastus,  247;  to  Vic- 
tor, 248;  his  recollections  of  Poly- 


540 


INDEX 


carp,  250;  on  ordination  of  Poly- 
carp,  252;  on  Cerinthus'  encoun- 
ter with  John,  262;  his  ecclesias- 
tical position,  265;  his  relation 
to  Proclus,  265;  as  scholar  and 
churchman,  266;  on  Jesus'  age, 
405- 

Jacob's  Well,  388. 

James  (Epistle  of),  on  seat  of  apos- 
tolic tradition,  165. 

James,  martyrdom  of,  129. 

James  and  John,  306;  their  martyr- 
dom predicted,  129,  132;  show 
spirit  of  Elias,  140;  as  "sons  of 
thunder,"  141;  martyrdom,  145; 
in  Luke,  329. 

Jason  and  Papiscns  {Dialogue  of), 
220. 

Jerome's  legend  of  John,  306. 

Jerusalem,  529. 

Jesus  (Synoptic  Story  of),  11;  be- 
trayal of,  353;  visits  to  Jerusalem, 
410. 

Jewish  Ideas  and  Dialectic,  359. 

Johannine  Pragmatism,  332. 

John  (the  Apostle)  in  Asia,  127; 
his  martyrdom,  147,  217,  449; 
in  Patmos,  181;  metastasis  of ,  218; 
in  synoptic  story,  327;  in  Gal.  2: 
9,  329;  in  first-century  tradition, 

John  (the  Baptist),  290;  in  Mark, 
349;  in  Q,  350;  in  John,  351;  does 
not  precede  Jesus,  351. 

John  (the  Elder),  77,  105,  112,  122, 
151,  188,  256,  452;  paradosis  of, 
78;  in  Syriac  Eusebius,  115;  as  au- 
thor of  Apocalypse,  178;  on  au- 
thorship of  I  John,  444. 

John  (Epistles  of),  187;  authorship, 
189;  anti-docetic,  292. 

John  (Gospel  of),  28;  date  of,  22,  25; 
reserve    of,    201;    gaps    in,    202, 


473  f.,  493,  526;  choosing  of  first 
disciples,  204;  geography  of,  216, 
338;  growth  of  traditional  au- 
thorship of,  268;  a  spiritual  gospel, 
277;  its  symbolism,  279;  its  design, 
281,  291;  its  task,  288;  anti-docetic, 
294;  its  doctrine  of  hardening  of 
Israel,  303;  unreality  of,  354;  its 
changes  from  synoptic  ideas,  366; 
its  prologue,  373;  its  epilogue 
(see  Appendix);  its  structural  his- 
tory, 526. 

John  (Mark),  308. 

Jonah  (sign  of),  350. 

Josephus,  396,  404;  on  death  of 
James,  145. 

Jubilees  (reckoning),  397. 

Judas  in  John,  311,  313. 

Justin  Martyr,  his  neglect  of  John, 
23,  37,  92;  on  Apocalypse,  38;  dia- 
loguewith  Trypho,  66;  use  of  Paul, 
94;  on  John  the  Baptist  as  Elias, 
137;  on  Revelation,  159;  colloquy 
with  Elder,  207;  on  John  the  Bap- 
tist, 350;  his  conversion,  464. 

Keim,   20;  on  Epistle  of  Barnabas, 

45;  on  Hermas,  46. 
Kerygma  Petri,  40. 
Khopper,  217. 

Lazarus,  raising  of,  345. 

Leucius  Charinus,  261. 

Lightfoot,  449;  Essays  on  Super- 
natural Religion,  273;  on  motive 
of  John,  21;  on  Papias  as  aman- 
uensis of  John,  75;  on  Eusebius, 
79;  on  I  Jn.  160,  185;  on  rela- 
tion of  Epistles  to  Gospel,  190; 
on  Jn.  21:  25,  191,  211;  on  con- 
versational comments,  194,  222; 
on  Tiberias,  216. 

Loaves,  miracle  of,  431. 

Logos  doctrine,   282,  535;  of  Hera- 


INDEX 


541 


clitus,  4;  of  Philo,  5;  of  Paul,  5,  8; 

Johannine,  7;  of  Justin  Martyr,  7; 

of  Stoicism,  289. 
Logos  (Stoic)  unmoved,  346. 
Loisy,  A.,  S33'^  on  Jn.  2:  20,  342. 
T-ord's  Supper,  312,  415,  417,  431. 
Ludolphus  de  Saxonica,  501. 
Luke-Acts,  98. 
Luke     (Gospel    of);    on    Ellas    as 

"forerunner,"     i^q;    on    scat    of 

apostolic  tradition,  165;  in  John, 

368;  chronology,  303. 

Mark  (Gospel  of),  534;  appendix  to, 
70,  71;  date  of,  72;  on  Peter, 
James  and  John,  142;  against 
Quartodecimanism,  260;  contents, 
286;  its  inadequacy,  287;  on  spir- 
itual gifts,  328;  in  John,  368;  out- 
line of  passion,  370;  outline  fol- 
lowed in  John,  371;  on  Passover, 
412,  426;  story  of  resurrection, 
430;  on  Peter's  denial,  485. 

Martyria  in  Jn.  21,  194. 

Mary  Magdalen,  349. 

Matthew  (Gospel  of)  on  sj)iritual 
gifts,  32S;  in  John,  367. 

McGifTert,  A.  C,  on  Christian  Po- 
lemics, 357. 

Messiah,  witnesses  of,  134,  151; 
Moses  and  Elias  as  witnesses  of, 
136;    Apocalypse    as    witness    of, 

135- 
Melito,  258,  414. 
Meyer,  A.,  481. 
Midrash,  278,  340. 
Miltiades,  242. 

Ministry  of  Jesus  (Duration  of),  408. 
Mishkan,  477. 

Mommsen  (on  Papias),  112. 
Montanism,  238. 
Montanus,  235,  243. 
Moses  (prototype  of  Christ),  404. 
Muratorianum,    81,    88,    454,    530; 


on  Apocalypse,  177;  on  prove- 
nance of  John,  222;  on  apologetic 
interest,  222;  date,  239. 

Nativity    (date   of),    in    Luke,    402; 

with  census  of  Quirinius,  407. 
Nicodemus,  344,  491,  519,  523. 
Norris,  J.  P.,  498  f.,  501,  515. 
Notes  of  time,  341. 

Oppianus  Cilix,  196. 

Opposition,  377. 

Origen  (on  Basilides),  56. 

Oxford  Committee,  on  Hernias,  49; 

on  Apology  of    Aristides,   50;  on 

Didachc,  50. 

Pacianus,  248,  261. 

Palestinian  Gospel,  283. 

Papias,  61,  402,  470;  neglect  of 
John,  31;  quotes  Revelation,  32; 
use  of  John,  44;  tradition  from 
Elders,  58;  use  of  Revelation,  85, 
159;  groups  John  with  Matthew, 
91;  the  fragment,  no;  on  the 
Elders,  116,  124,  474;  date,  120; 
on  words  of  Elders,  125;  De  Boor 
fragment,  132,  143;  aim  of  writ- 
ing, 15S;  on  Apocalypse,  176;  on 
Matthew  vs.  Mark,  171. 

Parables,  369. 

Paraclete,  296. 

Paradoses  (of  John  the  Elder),  405. 

Parenthetic  additions,  198,  531. 

Partitionists,  480. 

Paschal  Chronicle,  260. 

Paschal  Settlement,  420. 

Patmos,  529. 

Paul,  439;  his  incarnation  doctrine, 
365,  536;  in  John,  370;  celebrates 
Passover,  426;  his  Logos  doctrine, 
467;  as  interpreter  of  divine  idea, 
534- 

Pauline  Gospel,  284. 


542 


INDEX 


Paulinism  in  John,  295,  438;  in 
Ephesus,  468. 

Penitent  harlot  (in  Luke),  378. 

Pentecost,  436. 

Peraean  ministry,  382. 

Petalon,  worn  by  James  and  John, 
148,  256. 

Peter,  martyrdom  predicted,  129; 
trial  predicted,  130;  First  Epistle 
of,  163;  martyrdom  of,  in  Jn.  21, 
195,  217;  commission  of,  218; 
sponsor  of  Mark,  302;  corrected 
in  John,  304;  his  denial,  308;  ap- 
pearance to,  429;  denial  in  John, 
484. 

Peter  and  John  in  the  Appendix, 
197. 

Philip  (the  evangelist),  260. 

Philo,  on  spiritual  sense,  277. 

Pliny,  Epistle  to  Trajan,  428. 

Polycarp,  colloquy  with  Anicetus, 
249;  martyrdom  of,  251,  254; 
Vita,  255;  date  of  birth,  255;  in 
letter  to  Victor,  256. 

Polycarp,  Epistle  of,  use  of  John, 
60;  on  the  Oracles,  115;  on  heresy, 
469. 

Polycrates,  229;  uses  Jn.  21,  263; 
neglect  of  John,  264. 

Pragmatism,  531;  of  Apocalypse, 
337;  haggadic,  339,  342. 

Praxeas,  244. 

Precise  details  (see  Pragmatism). 

Proclus,  Disputation  of,  228  f. 

Prologues  and  epilogues,  82. 

Purging  of  Temple,  383,  394,  489. 

Qiddush  of  Passover,  428. 
Quadratus,  120. 
Quartodecimanism,  247,  391,  412  ff.; 

of  ApoUinaris,  259. 
Quirinius  (census  of),  403. 

Ramadan,  419. 


Redactor,  193,  454,  466,  498,  523  f.; 
style  in  appendix,  200;  on  "Be- 
loved disciple"  204,  320,  326,  462; 
on  Jn.  19:  35,  309;  adjusts  tradi- 
tions, 327;  uses  I-III  Jn.  452; 
his  direct  claims,  463. 

Redemption,  425,  531;  celebrated 
by  Quartodecimans,  418. 

Renan,  446,  479. 

Return  from  underworld,  422. 

Revelation  (see  Apocalypse). 

Revelation  of  Messiahship,  352. 


Sabbath  controversy,  380,  435. 

Sabbath  of  Passover,  415. 

Sacrament  of  Judgment,  310,  316. 

Salmon,  on  Alogi,  238. 

Samaritan  gods,  344. 

Samaritan  ministry,  372. 

Samaritan  woman,  343. 

Sanday,  18,  32,  189;  on  Jn.  21:  24, 
305,  446;  on  date  of  John,  22;  on 
Clement's  testimony,  276;  on  prag- 
matism, 336;  on  fidelity  of  John, 
344;  on  internal  evidence,  356; 
on  Jewish  pilgrimages,  357;  on 
disuse  of  ceremonial,  356;  on 
Christology  of  John,  360;  on  syn- 
optic Christology,  361;  on  Matt. 
11:  27,  363;  against  Wernle  on 
originality  of  Paul,  364;  on  Drum- 
mond,  447;  on  I  Jn.  i:  1-3,  456; 
on  Jn.  19:  35,  459. 

Sanday  and  Schiirer  on  John,  95. 

Scattering  of  apostles,  196. 

Schmiedel,  25,  416,  437;  on  Jo- 
hannine  use  of  Synoptists,  332; 
on  Jn.  12:  1-6,  334;  on  miracle  of 
loaves,  434. 

Scholten,  472,  481,  489,  495,  522; 
on  "Beloved disciple,"  320. 

Schiirer,  413;  on  paschal  controversy, 
424. 


INDEX 


543 


Schwartz,  E.,  450,  481,  525;  on 
martyrdom  of  John,  128. 

Schweitzer,  A.,  479,  488. 

Scott,  E.  F.,  274,  437;  authorship  of 
I  Jn.  289;  on  sacrament  in  John, 
315;  on  essence  of  the  Gospel,  320; 
on  Johannine  use  of  Synoptists, 
332. 

Scripture  fulfilments,  339, 

Second  Coming,  297. 

Sects  and  parties,  359. 

Self-witness  of  author,  323. 

Sign  from  heaven,  395. 

Sign  of  Jonah,  361,  490. 

Sinaitic  Syriac,  484,  502;  its  cor- 
rection of  Jn.  18: 35  f.,  484;  its 
changes  of  order,  486. 

Smith,  David,  415. 

Sonship  in  Synoptists,  362. 

Soter,  on  Montanists,  241. 

Spirit  as  "Intercessor,"  299. 

Spirit,  gift  of,  424. 

Spitta,  F.,  403,  473,  485,  498. 

Spoiling  of  strong  man,  428. 

Stanton,  on  external  evidence,  19; 
on  date  of  John,  ^t^;  on  Hernias, 
47;  on  Apostolic  Fathers,  61;  on 
Justin,  65;  on  the  Appendix,  67; 
on  silence  of  post-apostolic  age, 
67  f.,  162,  169;  on  silence  of 
Clement  of  Rome,  168;  on  silence 
of  Ignatius,  168:  on  Justin's  view 
of  authorship,  212;  on  Hippoly- 
tus'  Defense,  233;  on  John  in  Asia, 
267. 

Star  of  Magi,  220. 

Strayer,  P.  M.,  493,  521. 

Stumbling  in  Synoptists  and  John, 

379- 
Style,  437. 
Sychar,  386. 

Symbolism  of  John,  340. 
Symeon  of  Jerusalem,  150. 
Sympathy  of  Jesus  (in  John),  345  f. 


Synchronisms  of  John,  394. 
Synoptic     material     (treatment     in 

John),  356. 
Synoptists,  corrections  of,  332;  idea 

of  John,  138,  164. 
Syrophoenician  woman,  372,  381. 

Tabernacles,  436,  522. 

Talmud,  448. 

Tatian,  29,  99,  497,  508;  his  or- 
der for  Jn.  4  f.,  504;  resultant  or- 
der, 506;  omissions,  507;  motive 
for  transpositions,  508;  location 
of  Jn.  12:  42-56,  509;  location  of 
Jn.  2:  14-22,  509;  location  of 
Jn.  3:  1-21,  510,  518;  connection 
of  3:22f.  with  4:  46  f.,  511;  re- 
sultant order  for  1:5,  512;  loca- 
tion of  3:5,  514;  location  of 
Mark  i:  41-4S.  S^?- 

Taylor,  J.  J.,  419. 

TertuUian,  on  principle  of  the  canon, 
84;  on  Proclus,  244,  246. 

Themiso,  230,  242. 

Theologos,  453,  456,  463- 

Theophilus,  29. 

Theophilus  of  Antioch,  90. 

Tiberias,  216. 

Tischendorf,  472;  on  Jn.  21:  25,  191. 

Topography  and  chronology,  385. 

Traditions  (of  Elders),  405. 

Traits  of  the  eye-witness,  ;^;^;^. 

Trecentius,  418. 

Turner,  390,  392  f.,  408,  491. 

Tyrannus,  468. 

Unforgivable  sin,  381. 

Valentinians,  393. 

Valentinus,  51. 

Van  Bebber,  491. 

Victor,  attempt  to  suppress  Montan- 

ism,  263. 


544 


INDEX 


Victorinus  fragment,  398,  400. 
Vigil   (the),  341;  of  Passover,  420- 

424. 
Vischer,  on  Apocalypse,  174. 
Von  der  Goltz,  on  Ignatius,  64. 

Weiss,  B.,  374. 

Weiss,  J.,  291. 

Weisse,  C.  H.,  479. 

Wellhausen,  25,  481,  495,  497,  521, 
522;  on  Jn.  20:  24-29,  318;  dis- 
placements, 477;  on  Jn.  i:5f., 
478;  on  duplicates,  494;  on  Jn.  7: 

3  i;  524- 
Wendt,  H.,  473,  479,  481,  495,  501. 
Windisch,  on  Basilides,  54. 
Wisdom  of  God  (quoted  in  Q),  410. 
Wisdom  of  Solomon,  5,  6. 


Witness  of  the  Church,  in  John,  323; 

in  I  Jn.  324,  457- 
Witness  of  Jn.  i:  11-17,  458. 
Witness  of  the  Spirit,  455. 
Wonders  of  faith,  369. 
Worsley,  F.  W.,  304;  on  Matt.  20: 

20,  392;  on  Mark  2:  i— 12,  363;  on 

Synoptics  in  John,  366. 
Wrede  (atomistic  method),  274,  437. 
Wright,  W.,  220. 

Zahn,  on  Eusebius,  105;  on  death 
of  John,  132;  on  Papias'  use  of 
I  Peter,  185;  on  Jn.  19:  35,  192; 
on  Jn.  21:  23,  211;  on  Alogi,  236; 
on  Miiratorianum,  237;  on  Mon- 
tanism,  242;  on  Appendix,  451; 
on  Tatian's  order,  502. 


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